MoE discloses subjects for 2024 ‘standards-based curriculum’ BECE

The Ministry of Education (MoE) has announced subjects which will be written by final-year Junior High School students to sit for the 2024 Basic Education Certificate Examination to be based on the Standards-Based Curriculum.

According to the Education Ministry, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, English Language, Creative Arts, Computing, Career Technology and Religious and Moral Education are the new compulsory subjects for the national examination.

Subjects like Arabic, Ghanaian Language and French the Ministry said will be optional subjects for the upcoming Basic Education Certificate Examination thus 2024 BECE candidates will be made to choose one of the optional subjects.

This comes after the Ghana Education Service (GES) urged members of the general public, particularly Junior High School (JHS) students to disregard the news that the subjects for the 2024 BECE will be reduced to five (5).

The Service clarification comes after the Director of Schools and Instructions Division at GES, Prince Charles Agyemang-Duah in an interview said 2024 BECE candidates will sit for only five (5) subjects in the national examination.

Agyemang-Duah emphasized that the previous nine subjects were deemed excessive, with some subjects appearing redundant and repetitive. As a result, the subject “Our World Our People” has been eliminated from the curriculum.

The Director of Schools and Instructions explained that upon closer examination, this subject exhibited significant overlap with social studies, making the learning experience appear burdensome and potentially punitive for students.

“We realized that the number of subjects the students learn at a particular stage was too much and there were some subjects that were more or less like repetition.

This subject; Our world our people, has been scrapped because when you look inside that particular course in the curriculum and you compare it to the social studies, it’s like duplication, the same topic here and there”

“The goal is to ensure that learning is not perceived as a punishment for children but rather as a meaningful and productive experience,” The Director of Schools, Prince Agyemang-Duah said in the interview with Accra-based MX24.

He added that “starting 2024 BECE, candidates will now be assessed in five subjects, reflecting a thoughtful and strategic approach to curriculum development. So, in 2024, five subjects are going to be written by the candidates.”