News:
March 25, 2021
Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Adu Twum has said the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA) cannot prescribe any punishment against some publishers who flooded the market with textbooks that contained “bigoted” content.
Answering a question filed by the North Tongu Member of Parliament Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa on the floor of Parliament on Thursday, March 25, 2021 about the textbooks, Dr Adutwum said the yet-to-be-approved Ghana Book Development Council Bill, will be able to deal with such cases in the future.
“The Ghana Book Development Council Bill has those provisions for sanctions to be taken against publishers like this”, he said.
“Unfortunately”, he noted, “the NaCCA Act does not make provision for that, so, inasmuch as you are scandalised and you do not want to see these things happening, in terms of the legal framework in which NaCCA operates, they do not have the room to do that but the Book Development Council is going to cure this deficiency.”
The books: History of Ghana, Textbook 3 authored by Badu Nkansah and Nelly Martinson Anim; as well as Golden English Basic 4 authored by Okyere Baafi Alexander, were widely condemned on social media.
NaCCA later came out to clear the air, saying those books were not approved.
There was also a subsequent apology from the publishers for circulating these unapproved books.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com