ACA Conference 2019

Introduction

During the last decade, rigorous field research has yielded a number of important lessons on how to leverage curriculum to achieve better educational outcomes. However, existing evidence and its implications for policy decisions are not always readily known among policymakers and practitioners. Across the world, countries strive to improve curriculum design, incorporate emerging frameworks and innovations, and strengthen curriculum implementation, fostering dialogue between researchers and policymakers and this is very critical.
Many developing countries have significantly improved access to primary school education, spurred by initiatives such as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which called for achieving universal primary education by 2015. However, enrolling more children has strained education systems – primary schools are failing to equip a large portion of students with even basic reading, writing, and math skills. The 2019 ACA conference had a theme named “Using Curriculum To Achieve Better Educational Outcomes: An African Dialogue”.

ACA Conference 2019

The ACA conference 2019 took place in Accra, Ghana, at GIMPA Campus. The conference was organised by Ghana Institute of Curriculum Development. The conference went well with approximately 15 countries in attendance, most of them were new countries that were not at the initial conference which was held in Uganda in 2018. There was good effort by the organisers to make the conference a success. The theme of the conference, which was used to generate the papers to be presented, accepted presentation in the form of keynotes, paper presentations in breakaway sessions, panel discussions, plenary.

In Ghana, the conference set the tone for effective interaction amongst curriculum experts, policy decision makers, practitioners and program implementing organisations across the African Sub-region.
Participants engaged in fruitful deliberations which produced new ideas that would inform and direct reform efforts across the continent.

There was also a slot for the General Assembly of the Association, which enabled the members to deliberate on issues of ACA. The discussions yielded key action issues that would indeed see the improvement of ACA. Click here access the full report of the conference

The conference was held to:

Promote curriculum research and development.
Create synergies among academics and experts to have common curriculum elements and robust standardized practices.
Share experiences and best practices in curriculum development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
Identify barriers in our quest to provide holistic and relevant education, foundational skills and core competencies for the children of Africa to take their place in the global knowledge economy.
Strengthen teacher education systems for effective education delivery.
Promote close collaboration with our local and international partners in education for effective curriculum
implementation to meet expected curriculum objectives and goals

Activities
Conference included panel and plenary presentations, roundtable discussions and workshops to share knowledge on curriculum development and implementation.

Side meetings
A total of 5 meetings were held with different groups and one executive meeting.
The first meeting was with the Hon Deputy Minister of Education, Ghana Ministry of Education on 26th May 2019 at 7:00pm at Gimpa Hotel in Accra Ghana. The Minister was delegated by the Hon Minister to take charge of the conference and represent him, and indeed he was meeting us in the capacity of the Minister.
Members agreed to have a courtesy call with the Minister with the aim of requesting him (the Hon Minister of Education; Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeth) to be the patron of ACA. This was a decision that was reached by ACA executive members who were present at the conference who met the previous evening and agreed on this course of action.
The discussions with the Hon. Deputy Minister went on well, where the chair took the Minister through the history of the former ACO and now ACA.
In the meeting emphasis was made as to why the executive took a decision to request Minister of education Ghana to be the patron; the key issues that were highlighted as justification for the request to Minister were as follows:

Ghana is recognized as the pioneer host of the original formed ACO in 1975
Ghana was undergoing through so many innovations specifically in the area of curriculum
That it was also true that African ministries of education have trust in Ghana on matters regarding education
Ghana was also a member of the executive committee and playing a central role as co-chair

The executive committee members were also privy to the sharing of the vast experience that the Hon. Deputy Minister had and indeed that Ghana would bring that on board. It was indeed agreed during the meeting with the Minister that curriculum should be used to bring Africans together and produced products that would benefit their countries and Africa in general.
It was stressed that it was critical that ACA should urgently map out and create a database of the education systems’ models in the continent so as to move our common agenda forward.
In addition, it was a very good opportunity that African Union had come on board and that would propel ACA indeed to greater heights. Already a number of meetings had been held at AU, attended by the ACA coordinator and a work-plan is in place highlighting the activities to be undertaken.
The meeting with the Hon. Deputy minister also alluded to the fact that ACA should use every available opportunity to benchmark on the experiences of other continents; Europe, Asia and America and within Africa itself. The link between continents and within the Africa continent will help to synergize and influence education and curriculum in Africa.

Conference Papers

The conference in Ghana had a significant number of presentations during the three days.

Click here to access the papers presented during the conference.