National Standardised Test has improved learners literacy — Deputy Education Minister
The Reverend John Ntim Fordjour, Deputy Minister of Education, says the introduction of the National Standardised Test has improved learners literacy and numeracy skills.
The test, he said, had tremendously improved learners ability to read from two per cent to 38 per cent at primary two in 2015.
The Deputy Minister said this when he visited the Flagstaff House Basic School and 37 Military Basic School in Accra to monitor the test.
In all, a total of 54,746 pupils in primary four and six sat for the test. The test introduced in 2021 will enable the Ministry of Education to generate data on the performance of pupils in English Language and Mathematics.
It will help to identify what the learning gaps are that need to be addressed and analyse variations in learner achievement by region, gender, location, and school type.
In 2015, an early grade reading assessment among primary two learners across the country revealed that only two per cent of the pupils could read at that level.
The World Bank has projected that 90 per cent of learners at the age of 10 in sub-Saharan Africa are not able to read simple text for understanding.
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Those figures, Rev Fordjour said, enabled the Ministry, in partnership with USAID, to introduce a number of interventions to address the reading challenges among the pupils.
Some of the interventions include play-based pedagogies among early childhood learners, phonics-based approaches to learning how to read, and ensuring learners transition properly from their mother tongue in the first three years to English, which is the official language of instruction.
Rev Fordjour said the outcome of the 2023 test revealed that 54 per cent of primary school pupils could read, which was contrary to the projection made by the World Bank that in Africa, only one in 10 children will be able to read.
The test showed that about six out of 10 children at the age of 10 in Ghana can read and understand. The Deputy Minister stated that the government’s target was to ensure that every child at age 10 could read and comprehend.
“The Ministry’s strategic plan is to ensure that at least 90 per cent of our learners at the age of 10 across the country should be able to read and understand,” he said.
The assessment is not to determine which school is better or which teacher is teaching better, but to understand the fundamental weaknesses in the education system at the learner level, to deploy interventions to address the challenges.
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