President Akufo-Addo has expressed government’s commitment to improving learning outcomes in schools across the country.
According to him, government is doing its best in ensuring students enjoy the best when it comes to both teaching and learning in the classrooms.
“Government is committed to improving learning outcomes in our schools through quality teaching of 21st century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication and digital literacy…”
President Akufo-Addo
Speaking at the 2023 Ghana Teacher Prize today, October 5, 2023, President Akufo-Addo reckoned that improving learning outcomes is crucial in all stages of a good teacher and it is in the light of this that at the pre-service level, National Teachers Council, in collaboration with the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, introduced the national teacher education curriculum framework in 2018.
This, he noted, resulted in raising the minimum qualification to teaching in Ghana to a bachelor’s degree.
“Five years after the introduction of the curriculum, steps are being taken to review it to keep pace with the global dynamics. Undoubtedly, the proof of quality teacher education institutions is a priority to government, hence, our focus in improving infrastructure and other learning resources in our colleges of education. The colleges of education infrastructure projects, which government has commenced at every college of education, will be completed on schedule to ease pressure on existing infrastructure and end the shift system in our colleges.”
President Akufo-Addo
Moreover, President Akufo-Addo stated that his administration’s commitment to education has been exemplary because it is of the firm belief that the quality of education is the enabler that makes the difference between developed and developing nations.
To this end, he explained that this is the reason for committing so much to initiatives such as the free SHS policy, the restoration of teacher and nursing trainee allowances, implementation of GALOP in 10,000 low performing basic schools, institutionalization of nationalized test for P2, P4 and P6, among others.
“I want to use this opportunity to thank profusely, teachers, especially those at the senior high school level for the impressive results seen in the WASSCE examination since the commencement of the free senior high school policy in September 2017. The 2022 WASSCE results of the third batch of the people I like to call, the Akufo-Addo graduates, shows 60.39% of students A1 to C6 in English, as opposed to 51.6% in 2016…”
President Akufo-Addo
Challenges with deployment of teachers
On his part, Minister for Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, revealed that despite the challenges confronting the education sector in other jurisdictions with teacher shortage, Ghana is privileged to have replete of teachers. He clarified that the absence of teachers in some schools is due to deployment issues which is being addressed.
“We have a deployment challenge. There are so many people waiting to come and teach. You may go to an urban classroom where there are two teachers in the classroom, and you go to Zabzugu and there is a shortage. I am therefore happy that we have committed that this deployment challenge is no longer the case in the next few months.”
Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum
Elaborating on how the issues relating to deployment can be addressed, Dr Adutwum revealed that government is willing to pay transfer grants to teachers.
He emphasized that there is a need to pay transfer grants, and government is committed to doing so that teachers can go to the places they are needed the most and “we can forever put to rest this allusion that there is a shortage when there is no shortage”.
“There are so many people who are waiting to be posted to go and teach and when we get clearance, we do that. We are one of the few countries in the world where you can get a hundred teachers today if you want them. The universities have done a good job, and we need to do a better job with the deployment process, and we are going to do just that.”
Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum
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