The Ghana syllabus, kept in the right year

Name: Olearna
Author: Olearna

Junior high follows the NaCCA curriculum that GES schools teach. Senior high follows the WAEC syllabus for WASSCE: four cores, then the electives on the student's programme. Olearna was built on that split, which is why a question written for JHS 2 does not get served to an SHS 2 Chemistry class. The school calendar sits on top of the same split: a JHS 1 week is foundation work, and a JHS 3 week can be a BECE paper. Senior high is on both the older WAEC syllabus and the current one. They stay separate. A student in the new curriculum and a resit candidate on the earlier papers each practise the syllabus they are writing. When NaCCA or WAEC changes a syllabus, the platform is updated to match.

Check one subject on the syllabus

Who publishes what

NaCCA, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, publishes the curriculum schools teach, including the current junior-high subjects. Some people still search for it as NACCA. GES is the Ghana Education Service: the service that runs the public schools. WAEC writes and marks BECE and WASSCE. Olearna is none of those bodies. We are the place a student practises against the syllabus they already have in school, and finds which topic on it is weak.

That is the alignment that matters on a Tuesday evening. The diagnostic asks a question from the subject the student is actually taking. The readiness label is for that subject. Practice stays there. Review shows the miss. A PDF of the whole syllabus on a phone does not choose the next twenty minutes.

JHS: the subjects NaCCA uses now

JHS 1, JHS 2, and JHS 3 are three years of the same curriculum, not three copies of the BECE. The public guides cover:

Computing is the current name. Older papers and older apps still say ICT. Career Technology is the current name for a lot of what used to be called BDT or Pre-Technical Skills. Creative Arts and Design is its own subject. Religious and Moral Education is still RME in everyday speech. French and Arabic are options, not a replacement for English.

BECE also examines a Ghanaian language, and Physical Education and Health sits on the core list. Those two do not have a public guide here yet. The subjects above do. The exam year itself is on the BECE page, and the three school years are on the JHS page.

SHS: cores and electives stay apart

Every SHS student meets these four cores:

Integrated Science is the core paper. It is not a stand-in for Physics, Chemistry, or Biology. Core Mathematics is not Elective Mathematics. If a science student is weak in both, they are two different repairs.

Public guides for electives we cover:

A programme can include subjects that are not in that list yet. The school timetable is still the list that matters for registration. The exam page is WASSCE, and the three years are on SHS.

What to open next

Past questions for BECE and for WASSCE, after the topic is named.
Mock exams when a full paper is the right next step.
The chief examiner's report, read as a list of common national mistakes.
A teacher's guide for using the syllabus with a class.
The five diagnostics, which is where a syllabus becomes a next hour of work.

Common questions

Is Olearna the official GES or NaCCA syllabus?

No. The Ghana Education Service runs schools. NaCCA sets the curriculum. WAEC sets BECE and WASSCE. Olearna is an independent study app. Practice on Olearna follows those syllabuses, subject by subject, for the year the student is in.

Why do some books still say ICT and BDT?

Those are the older junior-high names. On the current NaCCA curriculum the close subjects are Computing, and Career Technology. A student should practise the name their school is teaching this year, and still recognise the old name when a past paper uses it.

Is the SHS syllabus the same as the JHS syllabus with harder numbers?

No. SHS has four core papers and a set of electives. Integrated Science is not Physics, Chemistry, or Biology. Core Mathematics is not Elective Mathematics. A JHS Science score does not tell you how an SHS elective is going.