The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has revealed that all primary four (4) pupils in public schools will, on 17th December, this month, write the new National Standards Test (NST) to assess their knowledge, skills, values and attitudes.
The test, GNAT explained, is central to Ghana’s new pre-tertiary education curriculum.
The revelation was made on an Accra base radio station on December 4, 2021 a content dubbed ‘GNAT hour’.
According to GNAT all head teachers and primary teachers are supposed to support in preparing the kids for what it described as maiden national test. It continued that that all primary teachers and Basic 4 pupils will have to stay on their various campuses till the said date.
“Head teachers are to inform parents of this new development to also prepare their wards, especially, since they would be in school when their colleagues would be at home,” GNAT explained during the radio programme.
To this end, GNAT further noted that all head teachers are entreated to give this information to all their teachers, especially the Basic 4 teachers adding that they must make their subordinates know the various centres and how things will be done.
According to GNAT, the management of GES in every Districts and Municipality is yet to communicate to all the primary teachers on how the exams will be conducted since most teachers are not even aware of the papers the children are going to take and where they are going to write.
The test, according to GNAT comes on the background of what the Education Minister of Ghana said on Sunday, June 6, 2021 at a Press briefing in Accra.
During the said press briefing, the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei-Adutwum, indicated that as part of government’s quest to build a robust education system, it would introduce the National Standards Test to assess and generate evidence on students’ achievement against set national competency standards in literacy and numeracy.
He mentioned that the test would inform targeted remedial interventions to ensure that students achieve the desired proficiency in literacy and numeracy.
The maiden edition of the standardized test was slated for November 2021 but couldn’t come off. According to GES calendar, Basic schools are supposed to vacate on 7th and 10th December for JHS and Primary Schools respectively.
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