By Kodjo Adams, Philip Woshime, GNA
Accra, May 16, GNA- The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has called on the Government to speed up with the development of textbooks for the country’s new standards-based curriculum.
The delay in producing the textbooks, the Association said, had affected teaching and learning in schools, especially in the rural areas and called for immediate action.
A speech read on behalf of Mr Kwame Dagbandow, the Deputy General Secretary in charge of Education and Professional Development, GNAT, said this on Monday at the launch of this year’s Global Action Week Celebration on Education on the theme: ” Building Forward a Resilient Pre-tertiary Education Through Inclusive Planning.”
The programme was organised by the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition
with support from the Global Partnership for Education through the Education Out Loud project and OXFAM-IBIS, a Danish Non-Governmental Organisation.
The new Standards-Based Curriculum was designed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment in partnership with the Ministry of Education to ensure quality of education and inclusion for all learners.
 The Curriculum expected all learners to acquire reading, writing, arithmetic and creative skills, which are prerequisite for becoming a digital literate, critical thinker and problem solver.
He called on the Government to be proactive in releasing the capitation grant to schools, which had been in arrears, stating that Education was a public good and must be enjoyed as such.
“To have access to quality education, we need a strong commitment to provide resources available for the development of the children in schools,” he said.
Mr Dagbandow urged the Government to increase budget allocation on education and priority placed on special students for inclusive and holistic education.
He said the Association had supported the Government to run workshops and programmes to improve the professional work of teachers to deliver on their mandate.
Mr Dagbandow encouraged stakeholders and development partners to ensure that there was uninterrupted electricity, especially in the rural areas to aid effective teaching of online learning.
Mr Joseph Atsu Homadzi, the National Chairman, Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), appealed to the Government to develop the braille copies of the new curriculum for blind students across the country.
Mr Homadzi said GNECC with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa had translated information on the coronavirus and the curriculum for the distance learning programmes rolled out by the Government into a diversity of accessible formats for children with visual and hearing disabilities.
He said demonstration videos were developed in sign language for children who were deaf and hard of hearing and those with speech impairment and learning difficulties, all geared towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) four.
Goal four of the SDGs is aimed at ensuring that all young people achieved literacy and numeracy and adults who lacked the skills are given the opportunity to acquire them.
Ms Elizabeth Korkor Amponsah, a student of Opah M/A Basic School, called on the Government to address issues of stigmatisation against students with special needs in schools and the inequalities in the educational space.
“We appealed to the authorities to address infrastructure challenges, especially with special needs, which has made them drop out of school,” she said.
GNA
