When l sat in the curriculum training for primary schools three years ago for l was excited because it represents everything l had always wished education should be about.
Today l sit in CCP training and l have the same feeling. But as l said three years ago, the greatest challenge to the full implementation of this wonderful curriculum is the teacher. You heard me right. You ask me how? Relax as l try to convince you.
You and l agree that a fisherman who has no proper skill will not even make a big catch with the abundance of fish in the sea. Equally a teacher who has not fully understood and accepted the new changes will not be able to pass it into the children. There are some teachers who have been teaching for over twenty years with a particular method and how can this teacher use only three days training to fully imbibed concepts to go teach children?.
So for three years the only thing that has really changed in our primary schools is the classroom arrangement. Most of the teachers are just using the old methods in a new environment. The PLCs which were supposed to augment the inadequate training was non existent.
So for all these years of the supposed implementation of a wonderful curriculum it was just a confusion grounds where each school and each teacher does what please him or her in a supposed standardised curriculum.
Teachers are good in adapting and what would have helped them in adapting would have been the textbooks and TLMs but as it is said the whale need no introduction to the happenings in the sea. So l need not to bother you about the textbooks brouhaha.
Today the teachers at the Junior High Schools are beginning three-day training on the CCP. As usual the teachers are going to be rushed through this training. Will the teacher be well baked enough to go run the CCP? Will resources be available for a successful take off ?
The people at he helm of affairs must stop behaving as if they do not exist among us. When you listen to the personnel of the Ministry of Education and GES speak, then you wonder whether they live among us. When you go to copy a foreign curriculum you must be prepared to learn their modes of implementation as well.
The just ended National Standard Assessment is going to expose our hypocrisy and when it finally comes we will resist an attempt to put the blame at the door step of the teacher. I repeat until the teacher is well trained and equipped we will only pretend to be running a curriculum.
My name is Chief lddi and l send you greetings from the CCP workshop in Adenta.