A video circulating on social media captures a resident of the Nsawam Adoagyiri constituency sharing his experience about having to close down his bookshop due to a government-led change in the school syllabus.
According to the resident, the syllabus change severely impacted his business, as he was unable to update the books on his shelves to align with the new curriculum.
In an interview with Accra-based TV3, he stated, “When the government changed the syllabus, I was unable to update the inventory on my shelves. All the investments I had made were stuck, and I had hoped for some legislative change to help, but unfortunately, none came. I had no choice but to turn to my mother’s akpeteshie (local gin) business, which is now what I rely on for survival.”
The Ghana Education Service (GES) has activated processes to revise the syllabi of basic, junior and senior high schools in 2019.
The decision to revise the syllabi is part of the government’s educational reform agenda.
The Director-General of the GES, Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, explained that under normal circumstances, “the curriculum is supposed to be revised every five years, but our curriculum has gone beyond 10 years without being reviewed”.
“Again, there are many duplications and irrelevance in the curriculum and that is one of the key things that the government has put on its agenda to reform the curriculum,” he stated.
Watch video below:
I closed my bookshop to sell 'Akpeteshie' after government changed the syllabus – Nsawam Adoagyiri constituent
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Concerns of publishers
However, the decision by the GES to revise the syllabi has drawn sharp criticisms from book publishers, who insist that the move will negatively affect their businesses and the quality of books they publish for lack of in-depth research.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra, the Managing Director of Badu Nkansah Books Company Limited, Mr Badu Nkansah, pleaded with the GES to postpone the implementation of its decision to 2021 to allow the publishers to do more research on the new syllabi to avoid plagiarism.
The postponement, he explained, would also enable the publishers to sell their already published books and repay the loans they secured from banks for their business.
Communiqué
Articulating the concerns of the publishers, Mr Nkansah said in June 2018, there was a communique indicating that the GES was going to introduce a new curriculum into the educational system.
He said when the association approached the GES to confirm the information, the service gave an assurance that it was not going to implement any new syllabi.