Implementing curriculum change in Ghana: exploring teachers’ experiences with enacting 21st century pedagogies

Research has long established that teachers’ characteristics such as attitude, knowledge, and pedagogical skills are superior expediters of curriculum implementation. Following Ghana’s recent introduction of a standards-based curriculum in K6 schools, we ponder how Ghanaian teachers are implementing change through their utilization of 21st century pedagogies. We implemented a qualitative descriptive phenomenology research that explored teachers’ experiences with emerging pedagogies. Twenty-one participants from four schools were observed and interviewed to reflect on their experiences and to facilitate a comprehensive description of the phenomenon. Having analyzed the data thematically, we observed that teachers adopt teasers, cooperative, experiential, and inquiry-based approaches in implementing the new curriculum. Regardless, the curriculum implementation is challenged by inadequate resources and teachers’ personality and competency factors. We discuss these findings in line with Fullan’s characteristics of change and conclude by categorizing our respondents along the line of an adapted Roger’s diffusion model; innovators, early majority, and laggards. For this, we confirm that the difference among the three groups of teachers lies in their personal motivation to embrace change. We therefore recommend for innovative teachers be motivated, early majority teacher to be offered training and laggards to be effectively supervised for the attainment of the goals of the new curriculum.