It's often debatable who have more influence on the Curriculum of every nation, is't the Government or the Curriculum Reasearch Institute as the big umbrella of which Curriculum planners and Implementers are all under it. I know that the Government which has influence of politics or veto power has the control of all bodies and organisations when it comes to the decision making of the Central Government. Even now that most Countries are adopting the Decentralisation under Local Government, everything is done in bottom-up-approach whereby information are linked up from District Level to the National Level.
It's rather unfortunate that the whole education which is the key to success are used for are tossed like dice by most of political influenced Governments. They influence education the way they want it. I wonder how the Curriculum planning committee and Curriculum Implementers committee as authonous board are silanced or are by passed during some decision making. The rate at which the education is imfluenced by Government is bad. In Ghana for instance, any time there is a change in Government, the Curriculum policies also changes, but I don't know about the other Countries. The second cycle institution inder J.A Kuffuor regime was a duration of 4years, and dropped to 3years under John Mahamah's regime.
Some of the laid down policies for education influence it positively or negatively. Under the current Government in Ghana, there is "Free Senior High School." This is the policy that covers the senior high school students to enjoy free from paying school fees, all senior high school students going ti dinning free; that's breakfast, lunch and supper. Both boarders and day students enjoy breakfast and lunch. Aside this, the Teacher training college duration has changed from 3years to 4years and trainees will be awarded Degree certificate as Universitu students. In the same way, Teacher Union Council has also introduced license examination for the trainee teachers and all those who want be enrolled as teachers. These candidates must pass the exams, given certificates before they can apply for teaching when the need arises. Now, there is nothing like Government posting teachers when they complete training colleges, they have to apply, when their documents are genuine then the are approved to teach.
When I analyse all these changes, I ask myself, what are the Curriculum Planners and Implementers doing? Some of the policies are too strange to accept. The most wonderful aspect about politics dominating in all aspect of organisations is that, the right people with the right field of works aren't selected to occupy those positions, even if they were, they are either influenced by politics. These Curriculum Planners and Implementers are educators who are competent in the educational policies but they are not given the mandates to make good decisions that will favour the educational systems. Imagine how can primary schools spend sixteen weeks in school, that's one term and would not write internal examination. This is very strange to understand. How do we assess student performance without test analysis? I therefore advise the Curriculum planners and Curriculum Implementers to wake up, not to let politics influence or interfere with their right jobs.