The National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA) has said three textbooks: History of Ghana Textbook 3 by Badu Nkansah Publications, History of Ghana for Basic 6 and Golden English Basic 4 by Golden Publications, have not been approved.

The Council disclosed this in a statement issued and signed by its Acting Director-General John Mensah Anang on Monday, 15 March 2021.

NaCCA reiterated that the books, currently making waves on social media, have not been approved for use in schools.

“History of Ghana for Basic 6 by Golden Publications, which carries distasteful information about Dr Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP; History of Ghana Textbook 3 by Badu Nkansah Publications, which features a song that shows the Ewes identity; Golden English Basic 4 by Golden Publications, which displays ‘Efo agrees to prepare the juju for the players’ on page 17,” are all unapproved, NaCCA said.

The Council continued that in each of the books mentioned, the “authors make inappropriate references to personalities and ethnic groups, which are deemed unfortunate, distasteful and are in contradiction with NaCCA’s Book Submission Guidelines and Approval Methodology, which guide the work of publishers and authors.”

It indicated that it has met with the management and leadership of Golden Publication and asked them to withdraw the “unapproved offending books” from the market and submit them for assessment and approval.

NaCCA added: “We are firmly on the ground with respect to the fight the use of unapproved books in schools and all culprits will be duly dealt with according to the law.”

Earlier, NaCCA asked New Golden Publications to withdraw the books from the market with “immediate effect,” as well as other “unapproved books” that it may have on the market but have not been mentioned in the letter.

The Council further asked the publisher to “issue an unequivocal apology through the electronic, print, and social media.”

It added: “Failure to comply with this directive will attract sanctions.”

Meanwhile, the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said he has filed an urgent parliamentary request for the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Adutwum, to appear before the house to respond to questions with regard to a newly-published history textbooks for pupils in Primary 3 and 4, which, in the opposition MP’s view, contains stereotypical content about Ewes.

According to the North Tongu MP, who is also an Ewe and served as Deputy Education Minister in the erstwhile Mahama-led government, the Education Minister will appear before the House to respond to what he referred to as the “two bigoted publications in issue.”

In a post on Facebook on Sunday, 14 March 2021, Mr Ablakwa said: “The text of my urgent question is as follows: To ask the Honourable Minister responsible for Education whether the publications titled: History of Ghana, Text Book 3 by Badu Nkansah Publications authored by Badu Nkansah and Nelly Martinson Anim and Golden English Basic 4, authored by Okyere Baafi Alexander, both of which contain bigoted content targeted at the Ewe ethnic group, have come to his Ministry’s attention; were they approved by any of his Ministry's agencies and what steps Government is taking to purge our schools and book shops from offensive, divisive and incendiary publications of this nature?”