National Standardized Test to be expanded to four classes to ready students for BECE — Education Minister

As part of broader efforts to improve educational outcomes in the country, Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu has announced the expansion of the National Standardized Test (NST).

According to him, this initiative will help prepare students both mentally and academically for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

Speaking at a school renovation project launch in Bubiashie on Monday, February 17, spearheaded by Okaikwei South MP Ernest Adomako, the Minister stated that the test will now be administered to Primary 2, Primary 4, Primary 6, and Junior High School (JHS) 2 students.

“I am also happy to announce that the National Standardized Test will be introduced for Primary 2, Primary 4, Primary 6, and JHS 2. The intention is simple. We don’t want a situation where a child’s first exposure to a formal exam is the BECE, without ever experiencing the psychological environment of an examination room.

“Therefore, we intend to introduce the NST as a structured assessment to help students gradually adapt to examinations and improve the quality of assessment in Ghana,” the Minister said.

Meanwhile, the 2024 NST was administered to Basic 4 and 6 learners across all basic schools in the country.

The NST is an intervention introduced by the Ministry of Education to access the extent to which learners have covered the content of the teaching curricula approved by the Ghana Education Service (GES).Ghanaian tourism packages

It provides an assessment targeted at measuring the proficiency of pupils at the basic level, especially in English and Mathematics.