The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku-Prempeh, has revealed that Cabinet has approved the Common Core Programme (CCP) Curriculum for Junior and Senior High Schools which will be rolled out in the next academic year.
The Minister, who is also Member of Parliament for Manhyia South and is popularly known as ‘NAPO’, made these revelations in a comprehensive statement to Parliament on education and teacher reforms since the New Patriotic Party (NPP) took power on January 7, 2017
He explained that the CCP is a carefully designed curriculum for learners in JHS 1 (Basic 7) to SHS 1 (Basic 10) as part of the learning experiences necessary to prepare them for higher education, the world of work or both.
“With significant emphasis on a set of high internationally-benchmarked career and tertiary ready standards, the CCP is designed around building character and nurturing values, in addition to ensuring a seamless progression for all targeted learners from JHS to SHS,” he said.
The Education Minister indicated that, at the end of the CCP, learners have the options of branching into either the academic pathway or the career pathway for two years (SHS 2 to SHS 3), leading to either a high school or career-ready diploma.
“Our transformational efforts on the curriculum is focused on ensuring that we have the dream Ghanaian child who is competent and able to match up to any of their counterparts anywhere in the world,” he said.
Setting out the background to this, Dr Opoku-Prempeh explained that in 2017, the government prioritised curriculum revision and pursued it aggressively. KG – Primary 6 curriculum was completed, transitioning us from an objective-based curriculum to a 21st century standards-based curriculum.
He further stated that almost all 153,000 KG and primary school teachers across the country received an initial training and continue to update their skills and competencies on the new curriculum.
Roll-out commenced in September 2019 at the beginning of the 2019/2020 academic year. With the revised curricular, emphasis has been placed on the acquisition of foundational reading, writing, arithmetic and creative skills and core competencies including Creativity and innovation, Critical thinking and Problem-solving, Communication and Collaboration, Cultural identity and Global citizenship, Personal Development and Leadership, and Digital literacy.
“Mr Speaker, with significant numbers of our children truncating their education at the Basic level in the previous years, the free SHS programme, together with the comprehensive nature of the CCP curriculum, that holds both junior high and senior high together, will certainly increase the opportunity for many to access improved quality secondary education. In the past, approximately 30% of all students placed in SHS failed to enroll. The proportion of students placed in SHS that failed to enroll declined to 11% in 2019. Transition rate from JHS 3 to SHS 1 has also increased from 63% in 2016 to 90% in 2019,” he added.
In his statement, he also touched on other initiatives and reforms rolled out by the NPP government in the education sector, including teacher training, staff promotion, the teacher licensure regime, infrastructure investments, a legal and regulatory framework, improvements in the Technical, Vocational Education & Training sub-sector and several others.