Vincent Ekow Assafuah, the Member of Parliament for Old Tafo in the Ashanti Region is urging the Speaker of Parliament to push forward a stalled investigation into claims that teacher manuals distributed nationwide contain content linked to LGBTQ themes.
Assafuah, a member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) told Parliament that he and other Minority leaders formally applied on 20 January for a half-hour motion to trigger a probe into the materials.
No action
He said the Speaker had referred the matter to Parliament’s Education Committee, with the Business Committee informed to schedule the issue for deliberation, but no action had followed.
“The motion was to investigate how and why teacher manuals given to teachers across the country had tendencies of LGBTQ in there,” Assafuah said on the floor of the House.
“We were expecting that it would find expression in the Business Statement for the Education Committee to investigate,” he said, adding that the delay suggested a lack of interest from the Majority leadership.
“The only voice of conscience that is left is the Speaker of Parliament, and I hope that will not be lost on us,” he said.
The controversy
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) early last month, withdrawn printed copies of a Senior High School Physical Education and Health teacher manual after parts of its content on gender identity did not align with Ghanaian cultural values.
NaCCA Director-General Samuel Ofori Bekoe said on the Asaase Breakfast Show that the issue stemmed from a teacher guide developed by external consultants to support the new senior high school curriculum introduced in 2024, not from the approved curriculum itself.
“When the matter was brought to our attention, we interrogated the content and engaged those who developed it,” he said, adding that the controversial section had been revised.
Disturbing definitions
The Old Tafo MP however revealed that the document withdrawn by NaCCA defined gender identity as a person’s deeply felt internal experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with sex assigned at birth.
“That was serious and disturbing,” he said, adding that such definitions were not rooted in Ghana’s approved curriculum framework.
Following public criticism, NaCCA announced the withdrawal of the document and said a revised version had been produced under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, a position later referenced by Deputy Education Minister Clement Apaak.
Worsened situation
Assafuah further said the revised document worsened the situation by defining sexuality and sexual orientation as a person’s pattern of emotional and sexual attraction to others, without specifying attraction to the opposite sex.
“That definition now tells our teachers that a man can express romantic and emotional feelings to anyone. They did not limit it to the opposite sex,” he said.
He also criticised sections defining sexual and reproductive health rights as the right of individuals to make informed decisions about their sexual lives without discrimination, coercion or violence.
According to Assafuah, the revised material recognises sexual rights, including sexual pleasure, bodily autonomy and freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender.
“This revised version is even worse than the one that has been withdrawn,” he said. “How do you withdraw one document and replace it with something more problematic?”
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