The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has blamed the circulation of textbooks with bigoted content against Ewes on the lack of an enforcement regime for the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA).
Answering questions in Parliament on Thursday, March 25, 2021, Dr Adutwum said the yet to be approved Ghana Book Development Council Bill will provide that framework for sanctioning such deviant publishers.
He was responding to questions on the content of books that cast a slur on the Ewe people from North Tongu MP, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.
“The Ghana Book Development Council Bill has those provisions for sanctions to be taken against publishers like this. Unfortunately, the NaCCA Act does not make provision for that so in as much as you are scandalized 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 Education Minister’s questioning in Parliament was occasioned by Okudzeto Ablakwa’s filing of an urgent question for the Minister to explain how the books got into the public domain.
He described the books as “bigoted.”
The content of the books sparked criticism on social media from members of the Ewe ethnic group who criticised the stereotypes.
The National Council for Curriculum Assessment subsequently clarified that the controversial textbooks had not been approved for use in schools.
The textbooks – History of Ghana, Text Book 3, was authored by Badu Nkansah and Nelly Martinson Anim; while the Golden English Basic 4 was authored by Okyere Baafi Alexander both of which were said to contain bigoted content targeted at Ewes.
The publishers subsequently apologised.
