Learning poverty among students increased amid Covid-19 – MoE
Dr Osei Yaw Adutwum, the Minister for Education says learning poverty is when a 10-year-old school-going child is unable to read, a situation he said the unexpected outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic has made worse.
In a discussion monitored by AcademicWeek, he said 23 out of every 100 children before the outbreak of the locally transmitted virus had such a problem but has currently increased to almost 70 per cent since the global pandemic.
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The Education Minister indicated that the Ghana Education Service (GES) after last year’s school closure rolled out learning programmes for students but the majority of them were exempted for some reasons.
For this, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum disclosed the Ministry of Education (MoE) November this year will introduce a National Standardised Test to evaluate primary four (4) students across the country on whether they can read or not.
This Minister in Charge of Education said forms part of efforts to improve learning outcomes, reduce learning poverty and help the central government see the challenges that are confronting the country’s education sector.
“The basic four students will also be tested on reading in primary 5 and primary 6 respectively and the test 2022 will commence from primary 2, 4 and 6 students,” the Minister for Education and Bosomtwe lawmaker said in the interview.
Mr Yaw Osei Adutwum indicated the national standardised examination or test will also generate reports that will detail the challenges facing the education system across the country in the areas of literacy and mathematics.