Public Basic schools in the Upper East Region are still without textbooks more than four years after the rollout of a standards-based curriculum at the basic school level (primary and junior high schools), forcing teachers to improvise and rely on the internet to teach pupils, according to Coalition of Concerned Teachers, Ghana ( CCT- Ghana) in the Upper East Region.

In a recent interview with Bolgatanga Dreamz FM, the Upper East Regional Chairman of the CCT-Ghana, Richard Sunday Yinbil, lamented the struggle of teachers in executing their tasks without textbooks and other teaching and learning materials.

“We don’t have textbooks. As far as this curriculum[ the Standards-Based curriculum] is concerned, we don’t have…I go onto the internet, and download books that are there. I buy data, go onto the internet, and ask my colleagues. So if go to our platform, people are asking ‘Can you help me with this or that’. Because some go onto the internet and don’t get the right information,” Richard Sunday Yinbil lamented.

He added that even though teachers go to great lengths to teach pupils without textbooks, their efforts go unnoticed and unrewarded by the Government.

In September 2019, the Government began the implementation of a Standards-Based curriculum at the pretertiary level, beginning with primary and junior high schools. But the implementation has been fraught with challenges, especially without the requisite teaching materials such as textbooks for pupils and teachers.

The government has failed to supply textbooks to all schools despite countless promises and assurances from the Minister of Education and other Government functionaries