MoE to enforce education standards through monitoring and evaluation – Dr Prince Armah

The Ministry of Education is to set to adopt effective monitoring and evaluation to ensure that the maintenance of standards in education across the country. Using tablet-based technology to ensure ease of recording and reporting, this will ensure that the managers of education in the country have enough information to enable them improve on successes and resolve any problems that might arise. This was revealed by the Executive Director of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, Dr Prince Hamid Armah. Dr Armah was addressing the United Nations Educational Cultural and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - Teaching and Learning: Educators’ Network for Transformation (TALENT) Workshop held in Adis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In his presentation to the conference, Dr Armah, who is also the co-chair of the African Curriculum Association and chairman of its publication committee recounted the curriculum reforms currently on-going in the country, which he said are to align the educational system with and enable it fully support the nation’s development agenda. He stressed that an effective monitoring and evaluation system will be key to ensuring that the aims of the reforms are achieved. Among others, managers of education will be able to determine from the data collected which aspects of the system require increased government attention and action, what tools are needed to enable administrators perform more effectively and whether there are any changes in policy needed to ensure better outcomes.

The UNESCO-TALENT workshop is an initiative between the two organisations to bring education policy makers and implementers together for high level engagements on the sector in order to drive improvements in member nations. TALENT is designed to serve as a thematic platform to support the implementation of the Framework for Action of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Education by 2030. TALENT has been one of the task teams of the Regional Coordination Group on SDG4-Education 2030 in West and Central Africa since June 2016. The focus area of the network is teaching and learning, paying particular attention to alignment of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, as well as issues related to institutional environment to support effective learning. Its activities focus on research, knowledge sharing, and capacity building.

On the side-lines of the three-day workshop, the African Curriculum Association was given a seat on the steering committee of UNESCO-TALENT, following a meeting with Dr Armah, co-chair of the continental body. ACA will join other international organisations such as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund; Africa Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa, the education development arm of the Africa development bank.