A curriculum is important in an educational system. It helps in planning the education process or procedure for a given period of time, term, season, lesson period, etc.
For a society to achieve educational goals, it needs a functional curriculum relevant to its needs.
According to education experts, the fundamental purpose of curriculum development is to ensure that students receive integrated, coherent learning experiences that contribute towards their personal academic and professional learning and development.
It is against this backdrop that we welcome the new curriculum for primary schools and the reduction of subjects from seven to four for kindergarten.
The Ghanaian Times is of the view that the move by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to introduce a new curriculum to replace the current one, is in the right direction.
Although, we do not know the full details of the new curriculum, our position is that the country needs to move away from the past and adopt new curricula that conforms with best practices around the world.
We do know that the current curriculum for teaching and learning processes only focus on examination results and not outcomes, which only produces students without the necessary knowledge, skills and appropriate attitudes.
According to Professor Kwesi Opoku-Amankwa, Director-General, GES, the key focus of the new curriculum is the emphasis that would be placed on numeracy and literacy.
“At every stage in school, a pupil is expected to demonstrate understanding and mastery of knowledge and skills that they are expected to learn as they progress through education,” he said.
Indeed, this is not happening in the school and pupils and students complete without the appropriate attitudes.
It is in this light that we see the efforts by the government to implement a new curriculum as the first step to transforming the entire education system.
The education sector is ailing and the only remedy is reforms that would bring about the needed change.
We call on all stakeholders to support the GES to introduce the new curriculum which we believe would address the inefficiencies in the education sector.
