Assessment of COVID-19 on Primary Education in Ghana

In the wake of the global novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, it is abundantly clear to all educational institutions the necessity of studying in the physical classroom and widespread health consequences associated with the virus. However, what is much less clear is the impact of COVID-19 on Primary education in Ghana. Already, facilitators and pupils were grappling with the implementation of the Standard-based Curriculum 2019 coupled with the non-availability of approved textbooks for all the subjects. When the School’s academic year 2019/2020 began in September 2019, school administrators, facilitators, parents and pupils had great challenge in understanding the objectives, content, methodology and evaluation approach in the new curriculum introduced. The new curriculum introduced new subjects such as History and Our World Our People into Primary Education in Ghana. However, when School Administrators, facilitators, parents and pupils were getting a better understanding of the Standard-based Curriculum in the second term of the School year, the President of Ghana closed all Educational Institutions suddenly due to the presence of COVID-19 in the country. The closure of the Primary Schools took place at the time when the pupils were preparing for their end of second term examinations for both public and private schools, just a few weeks to end the second term. A research was conducted on the assessment of COVID-19 on the Primary Education in Ghana. A survey of Mass Media was conducted and in the survey, News items, Report and Interview on education and educational stakeholders from television and radio stations were collected. The radio stations were Peace FM, Citi FM, Joy FM, Adom FM and Oman FM. The television stations were Adom TV, UTV, TV3, GTV, Joy News, Metro TV, and Joy Prime. Furthermore, the BBC was added to get the global perspective on how Education in Ghana responded to the COVID19 pandemic.