Assessment in Preschools in Ghana: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

This paper focuses on a very critical area, assessment in preschools in Ghana. It discusses the issues and challenges in Ghana’s early childhood education system. Educational Reforms since 1987 have advocated the inclusion of nursery and kindergarten education in the basic school system. In all of these reforms, especially that of 1987 and 2007, efforts were not made to critically look at establishing standards for the smooth running of such early childhood programmes. Also, assessment procedures to help in achieving the major purposes of the programme as introduced in some selected schools in 1987 and as a beginning point of Ghana’s education as stipulated in 2007 reforms were not clearly stated. It is on this note that the authors discuss the issues and the numerous challenges that have evolved in assessing young children between the ages of 3 and 8 years in Ghana’s education system. This paper, as a caveat from a discussant paper presented during a national conference in early childhood education in Ghana, addresses the issues of assessing young children by reviewing major purposes of assessment, action options to improve the system, challenges in assessing young children and recommendations for good practice.

Keywords: preschool, early childhood, development appropriate assessment, educational reforms, standards.