Starting from the 2024–2025 academic year, senior high school (SHS) science students will no longer have to study Core and Elective Mathematics as separate examinable subjects.
Instead, they will be required to take Additional Mathematics, according to Professor Edward Appiah, the Director-General of the National Council and Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA). Additionally, these Science students will no longer study Integrated Science since they are already studying Pure Science.
This change in the educational system is reminiscent of the system that was in place after the country gained independence, before the major reforms that introduced the junior high school (JHS) and the SHS system.
In an exclusive interview with Graphic Online, Professor Edward Appiah, the Director-General of NaCCA, explained that students pursuing General Arts, Business, Home Economics, and Visual Arts will now take Integrated Science, which will be renamed General Science, and Modern Mathematics instead of Core Mathematics.
This directive was implemented with the introduction of standard-based and common core curricula for basic and junior high schools in the country.
The Ministry of Education has revised the curricula for pre-tertiary schools to shift the focus from rote learning to the acquisition of critical learning skills.
The inaugural edition of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) will be undertaken by the current final-year Junior High School (JHS) students, as stated by Prof. Appiah during an interview with the Daily Graphic.
Prof. Appiah further elaborated on the implementation of the common core curriculum in JHS and Senior High School (SHS), highlighting that JHS 3 students have been following this curriculum since JHS One. Consequently, their BECE will be based on the common core curriculum.
Additionally, NaCCA has successfully conducted a trial test of the common core curriculum for SHS students, which is scheduled to commence in the academic year 2024/2025. To facilitate the selection of schools for this trial test, NaCCA has divided the country into three zones.
“For each zone, we picked Category A, Category B and Category C schools to do the trial testing, and we used the feedback that we got to finalise the document.
“Of course, we had to even engage other stakeholders before getting to this stage,” Prof. Appiah said, adding that with the finalised document now ready, NaCCA would do the final trial test of the document in 31 schools across the country.
“The trial will be completed in July so that it will go live in September when the academic year will be starting with the reversal to the old academic calendar,” he explained, stressing that the current JHS 3 students would start with the common core curriculum in SHS.
Prof. Appiah said JHS students who rushed to sit the BECE 2023 had lost, “because the students who are going to do this common core-based examination will have easier assimilation and transition.
“Our mode of assessment has changed.
Now, the students are being assessed along the line,” he said, adding that the current mode was a multiple assessment system and not the end-of-the-year assessment.
