Pressure mounts on GES, Education Ministry to withdraw CSE from curriculum

Pressure has started mounting on the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to withdraw the controversial comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) from the 2019 curriculum of Basic and second cycle schools.

There have been conflicting reports and denials of the inclusion of the CSE in the 2019 curriculum by the Education Ministry and the GES.

But checks by some civil society organisations indicate that CSE is actually included in the curriculum.

The African Education Watch, a non-government organization is calling on the government to immediately halt any process to roll out the CSE and engage with all the relevant stakeholders and come to a consensus on the kind of information that should be included in the education material.

The Executive Director of African Education Watch, Kofi Asare said, “The first thing the Ministry has to do is to put on hold any instructional effort. The ministry will also have to call for a dialogue  moral society, traditional authority and faith-based organization and have extensive discussions on this based on which consensus will be reached on the aspects of CSE that we want to incorporate into our curriculum.”

Meanwhile, the Executive Director of Child Rights International, Bright Appiah says the Ministry of Education must admit failure in not clearly communicating information concerning the CSE and find a way to properly engage the public on the guidelines.

“Our investigations point to the fact that most of the things that went into the guidelines were not exactly the picture that was painted in the process so we knew that something wrong and happened at the blind side of the Ministry for which we expect them to acknowledge. They should render an apology to Ghanaians and take the necessary steps to engage,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council will later today [Thursday] address the media on the subject matter.