Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), Dr Peter Anti-Partey has blamed lapses in quality control for the controversy surrounding alleged LGBTQ-related content found in a Senior High School teacher’s manual, insisting the issue has little to do with timing and more to do with weaknesses in the curriculum review process.
Speaking on JoyFM Top Story on Thursday, January 15, Dr Anti-Partey said reviewers of teachers’ manuals are professionally trained to work with the approved curriculum side by side, ensuring that only content explicitly captured in the curriculum is reflected in supplementary teaching materials.
“We should not be interested in when this was done and when that was done. I think it’s a matter of quality control,” he said, explaining that any material found in a teacher’s manual but absent from the approved curriculum should ordinarily be flagged and addressed during the review stage.
He noted that given the sensitivity of sexuality and gender-related issues in Ghanaian society, reviewers should have exercised greater caution.
According to him, the controversial nature of such topics ought to have triggered further consultation with authorities before the manuals were approved and distributed.
“This is a very controversial issue within the community. If you are reviewing this manual and you see this, your instincts should tell you that this is something to be discussed further before it is kept in the book,” Dr Anti-Partey stressed.
His comments come amid a political storm sparked by allegations from the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, who accused the government of covertly introducing LGBTQ-related content into Ghana’s school curriculum.
In a social media post on Tuesday, January 13, the Assin South MP criticised the printing and distribution of teachers’ manuals and other learning materials, alleging that the governing NDC had “mischievously and deliberately smuggled” LGBTQ ideology into the curriculum, despite publicly opposing such issues.
The former Deputy Minister for Education claimed that the materials were designed to promote LGBTQ sexuality education in schools, contrary to Ghanaian cultural values and constitutional principles.
He further accused the government of frustrating parliamentary efforts to consider the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, while allegedly allowing similar ideas to surface within the education system.
The controversy centres on a definition contained in the Year 2 Physical Education and Health (Elective) Teacher Manual, a supplementary guide developed in 2024 to support the implementation of the new SHS curriculum.
Rev. Fordjour claimed hundreds of thousands of copies of the manual were printed and distributed nationwide, describing it as central to classroom instruction because it directs teachers on what and how to teach.
He argued that the manual goes beyond pedagogical guidance to introduce definitions of gender and sexual rights that, in his view, are inconsistent with Ghana’s Constitution and long-held cultural norms. As a result, he has called for the immediate recall of all affected textbooks and teacher manuals.
Meanwhile, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) has directed teachers in possession of hard copies of the manual to return them, as authorities review their internal quality assurance systems.
Dr Anti-Partey welcomed NaCCA’s admission of shortcomings, saying the episode should serve as a lesson for strengthening review and quality control mechanisms to prevent similar controversies in the future.
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