National book publishers question content of SHS students tablets

The Ghana National Association of Authors and Publishers has questioned the content of Senior High School (SHS) students tablets procured by the central government under the Ghana Smart Schools Project (GSSP).

Citing the lack of comprehensive content, the President of the Publishers, John Amponsah in an interview monitored by Thisterm.com said the content of the tablet supposed to replace the hard copy textbooks should be reviewed.

He said it is strange how the Ghana Education Service (GES) produce and uploads comprehensive content on tablets just two weeks after a new curriculum was released by the National Council for Curriculum & Assessment.

“Just last two weeks, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NACCA) released the curriculum, so how did they manage to upload the new content onto the tablets,” he quizzed in the interview with Abusua 98.5 FM.

Mr John contended that the content on the tablets supplied to students was not comprehensive and could not align with the curriculum insisting that publishers and writers create educational materials based on the curriculum provided.

“I can prove when given the tablets that the content is not comprehensive, look, if you go to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the Creatives Art Industry Lecturers were part of those who wrote the curriculum

Ask them if any attempt has been made to convert that into a learnable book. Nothing of a sort has been done so where are they getting the notes,” he quizzed.

He made references to the launch of the first phase of the smart education initiative in Accra, where he noticed discrepancies between the content and the curriculum, citing similarities to American content.

“When they first launched the first smart education, I was at the program in Accra, the content was not in conformity with curriculum, they copied ABC Mouse (American Content),” the President of the Authors and Publishers stated.

Mr Amponsah gave commendation for the initiative but highlighted the dangers it posed to the work of publishers especially when they were not consulted in coming up with the content of the electronic learning devices.

He found nothing wrong with the government choosing to contact subject book writers over complaints most publishers failed to meet specifications and timelines for the common core program at the basic school level.

The president therefore has urged his members to remain calm and concentrate on creating educational materials diligently in anticipation of a policy change or a regime that will act more favourably toward publishers.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Education Service (GES) when asked if the tablets will replace textbooks said replacement of the students Mate 1 tablets with textbooks would be a policy decision by the Ministry of Education (MoE).

The Education Service also said publishers remain key to the SM1 project adding that “the content has been paid. We have a continuous working relationship with the publishers. All copyright terms and conditions are observed.”