The Institute for Education Service(IFEST) has called on the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to halt the upcoming National Standardised Test for Primary Four pupils in public basic schools slated for 17 December.
The national test will enable the Ministry of Education to generate data on the performance of pupils in English Language and Mathematics. In all, a total of 561,595 pupils are expected to participate in the test from 15, 911 schools nationwide.
However, IFEST argues the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service are inadequately prepared to administer the impending exams across the country.
A statement issued by IFEST said “ The printers selected to print the question papers and the scannable answer sheet as at 24th November have indicated to the Ministry that, upon being commissioned, they will need a month to fully carry out their activities. “
“Fundamentally, the original mode of conducting the examination which was supposed to be school-based have been changing to cluster-based which brings to the fore issues such as a. proximity of school or home and exams centres.”
“The NST is supposed to be a diagnostic test aimed at identifying basically the extent of learning poverty and also identify if the set standards in the standard-based curriculum are being achieved to enable education planners to propose prescriptions to help mitigate the identified challenges. Consequently, any attempt to change the modalities and rush through the process will defeat the purpose of the NST,” the IFEST statement added.
Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, the minister of education in June this year announced plans by the government to introduce a new National Standardised Test to evaluate learning outcomes at the primary school level.
Addressing journalists in Accra on Sunday 6 June, the education minister said the initiative will be administered for the first time this year with Primary Four students nationwide.
“Our Human Capital Index in 0.44, so that is why the President (Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo) says transform the space, so transforming of the space means that all fourth graders (Primary Four students) this year are going to be tested across the length and breadth of this country, every one of them,” he said.
Dr Adutwum added: “So that we will see the challenges that are confronting us as a nation and then we will give them one year during the fifth grade or primary five to do an intervention. We will test them again in primary six, the following year, we are even going to begin from primary two…”.
Source: Fred Dzakpata
