EVALUATION OF COLLEGES OF EDUCATION (COE) SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM VIS-À-VIS THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL (JHS) SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM IN GHANA

Social Studies as a subject in the Junior High School (JHS) curriculum in Ghana is taught mostly by teachers trained in the country’s thirty-eight Colleges of Education. Analysis of the Colleges Social Studies curriculum vis-à-vis the JHS syllabus reveals differences in how the subject is structured to prepare teachers to teach it at the JHS level. An interpretative design was used for the study. The study revealed that: Colleges of Education subscribe to and use a crossdisciplinary perspective whereby facts, concepts and generalisations are bootlegged from the social science subjects which is dominated with geographical concepts, whilst the JHS subscribes to and uses trans-disciplinary approach which is holistic, theme based and problem solving. It was recommended that there must be a national curriculum policy on Social Studies that all pathways to teaching of the subject should undergo review according to such national standards to merits the needs of society.