The Institute for Education Studies (IFEST) has said teething problems with the first-ever National Stardardised Test (NST) is an indication that education authorities must proceed with caution.
The upcoming National Standardised Test (NST) is scheduled for December 17, 2021, and will be the first edition of the national assessment that will be administered by WAEC for Basic Four pupils.
According to the education think tank, although the government announced in June that the NST will be conducted in November, it later shifted the date to December, signifying that both Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service have failed to at their responsibilities.
“The fact that the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) could not use six (6) months to plan for this is a clear indication of outright dereliction of responsibility and hence teachers and pupils should not be made to suffer,” IFEST said in a statement signed by Executive Director, Peter Anti.
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IFEST stated that the MoE and GES are not adequately prepared to conduct the NST because of the following reasons:
- The pilot test conducted by WAEC revealed varied challenges which have been communicated to the Ministry.
- The printers selected to print the question papers and the scannable answer sheet as at 24th November have indicated to the Ministry that, upon being commissioned, they will need a month to fully carry out their activities.
- The lack of sensitization and communication lapses which have been a challenge even for WAEC have not changed.
- Fundamentally, the original mode of conducting the examination which was supposed to be school-based have been change to cluster-based which brings to the fore issues such as:
- proximity of school or home and exams centres.
- the security of the learners and in the event that they will be transported, who pays for their transportation?
- anxiety level of learners due to change of environment and others.
“IFEST would want to further remind MoE and GES that, the complete change in the modalities has the potential of defeating the original intent of the NST. The NST is supposed to be a diagnostic test aimed at identifying basically the extent of learning poverty and also identify if the set standards in the standard-based curriculum are being achieved to enable education planners to propose prescriptions to help mitigate the identified challenges. Consequently, any attempt to change the modalities and rush through the process will defeat the purpose of the NST,” IFEST stressed.
IFEST has therefore pointed out to the MoE and the GES that the extension of the academic calendar is needless and will inconvenience teachers, parents and the pupils.
“We wish to advise the MoE and GES to suspend the conduct of the NST in its current form to a later date in January. This will enable teachers adequate time to orient the pupils on all aspects of the test.
“We also call for the reversal of the cluster system to the original idea of a school-based test.
“Finally, we wish to appeal to the Ministry of Education to use this opportunity to resource NaCCA to enable them to fulfil their core mandate as an assessment entity building on their previous experiences in the conduct of the previous National Education Assessment (NEA),” IFEST proposed.
The Executive Director of IFEST, Peter Anti, said the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service will be held responsible by all other stakeholders in the event that things go wrong because they failed to heed these warnings.