It has therefore advised publishers intending to sell their books to pupils and students to submit those books as well as teaching and learning materials (TLMs) to NaCCA for assessment and approval.

The Director-General of the GES Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, announced this at a press conference in Accra yesterday, to update journalists on issues in the educational sector.

Act 778

The Education Act (Act 778) mandates the NaCCA to receive textbooks and other TLMs for recommendation and consideration, meaning that, all TLMs meant for the classroom have to be officially assessed, approved and recommended by NaCCA.

The request by NaCCA follows the successful completion of the development of the first phase of the pre-tertiary curriculum from Kindergarten to Primary six, to the GES for implementation.

Resource packs

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa announced that while awaiting for the approved books for distribution, training manuals, including training guides and teacher resource packs as well as the entire curriculum and training materials, had been developed for all teachers, which could also be accessed in soft copy.

“They are available on the websites of both the GES and NaCCA for easy access by teachers and the general public.

“Additionally, samples of structured lessons, worksheets, yearly overview, termly scheme of work and weekly lesson plans, have also been developed to aide teachers in delivering contents of the new curriculum,” he said.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa explained that the resource pack covered all the subjects taught in the basic school, insisting that, the immediate absence of the textbook would not inadvertently affect the learning outcomes.

On-going training

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa further announced that there was an on-going training for all circuit supervisors, headteachers and teachers in all public basic schools throughout the country, on the new curriculum for kindergarten and primary schools.

The training, which is expected to last for two weeks and another one week to be used for mopping up, is expected to attract 152,000 participants, who will attend in batches at 966 cluster centres throughout the country.

NaCCA position

Recently, the Executive Secretary of NaCCA, Dr Prince H. Armah, in an interview with the Daily Graphic explained that, the work of NaCCA as mandated by the Act, was to ensure that only “wholesome” books were put out there for the patronage of the public.

Dr Armah explained that as part of that effort, the NaCCA would soon introduce a short code to enable parents and schools which wanted to buy textbooks for their children or schools to check whether a book had been approved for the market for general consumption or not.

Admonition

He admonished parents and schools, especially basic schools, to ensure that books sold to them were approved by the council.

Dr Armah said nobody was supposed to sell any textbook on the market, streets or bookshops without having the books approved by the NaCCA.

He said it was the sole responsibility of the council to approve textbooks before they could be sold to the public, adding that in the past, the directive was not fully followed, “but for now we are determined to ensure that the right books are out there”.

He said the short code to be introduced was part of various measures being introduced by the council to clean up the process, which also included the publication of the list of approved and unapproved books on the NaCCA website.

The Executive Secretary said because many people did not have access to the Internet, the NaCCA made it more accessible to users by developing the short code for that category of people.