Basic school teachers in Yilo Krobo in the Eastern Region are unhappy over the lack of textbooks for the new standard-based curriculum.
According to them, since the rollout of the new curriculum in 2019, teachers are yet to access the requisite learning materials intended to facilitate teaching and learning in the various basic schools.
Ghana introduced a new standards-based curriculum in Education which was implemented in September 2019 with rolled out starting from Basic School.
President Nana Akufo-Addo who first announced the implementation indicated that the new curriculum would focus on making children confident, innovative, creative-thinkers, digitally literate, well-rounded, and patriotic citizens.
However, two years after the implementation of the new policy, teachers in Yilo Krobo Municipality say, the textbooks are still unavailable while teachers at the Junior High School level have not even been trained.
These sentiments were explicitly expressed by Teachers in the Yilo Krobo Municipality during the celebration of World Teachers’ Day on Tuesday, October 6, 2021, by the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Nkurakan Local.
Akutei Tetteh,Yilo Krobo Municipal Chairman of GNAT said “the situation in my area, as we speak we have the new curriculum but we don’t have the textbooks to teach. Teachers are not having the textbooks to teach. As we speak, the Basic six pupils who were moved to JHS one are doing the new curriculum and even as we speak the teachers in JHS have not been taken through the training which will enable them to deliver so I think these things are making educational system in Ghana very difficult for the teachers”
The Nkurakan Local Chairman of GNAT Dzramado Emmanuel said Politicians should respect teachers in the country and reciprocate the sacrifices they make daily with the improved conditions of service.
He said teachers in Yilo Krobo are faced with many challenges including poor classroom infrastructure and lack of decent accommodation in deprived communities they teach forcing them to commute long distances mostly on foot and motorbikes daily.
“we are doing our best, teachers should not be counted as poor. We should tell the politicians that we are also humans. We are making them who there are so they shouldn’t look down upon us. we should make sure that our work moves on well they should also push us they should sponsor our materials, TLMs that we need they should supply it, We need computers”
This year’s World Teachers’ day was on the theme: Teacher Wanted: Reclaiming Teaching and Learning for Human-centred recovery”.
The Nkurakan Local GNAT Chapter organized a float with placards expressing their various sentiments and subsequently held a durbar and games to mark the day.
Hadjia Ruckaiyah Issah, the Eastern Regional GNAT Treasurer called on the government to declare World Teachers’ Day as a national holiday for teachers in Ghana to properly celebrate teachers.
-By Kojo Ansah | Starrfm|Ghana
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