Education Ministry rebrands National Teacher’s Awards

The Ministry of Education in collaboration with the National Teaching Council will organise an award ceremony dubbed ‘Ghana Teacher Prize 2018’ on October 5, 2018 at the Economics Department Hall, University of Ghana, Legon.

The award will also be preceded by edu-conference, exhibition and seminars from October 3 to 4,2018 on the theme “the Right to Education Means the Right to a Qualified Teacher”.

The National Teacher Awards have been rebranded ‘Ghana Teacher Prize’ with an international standard as the new benchmark.This was contained in a statement signed by Dennis Osei Owusu, the Public Relations Officer, National Teaching Council and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.

The award is to recognize the contributions of hardworking and selfless teachers towards the improvement of education in the country through the Teacher’s Day Celebration.

The objective of the award scheme is to motivate teachers for higher performance and also restore the respect the profession should enjoy.

It further aims at retaining qualified teachers and improve their work performance and overall effectiveness in the classroom.

Touching on the eligibility criteria, Mr. Owusu said the award is open to current working teachers both private and public who teach children that were in compulsory schooling, adding that Teachers on voluntary teaching service were also eligible.

He stated that unlike the overall best teacher awards category in the previous years, the Ghana Teacher Prize would honor ‘Ghana Most Outstanding Teacher Award’ (GMOTA) category for exemplary leadership and ground-breaking work that had affected and transformed the lives of the students under their care and the community around them.

Mr Owusu said the GMOTA would be conducted annually and the occasion shall be named the ‘Ghana’s Most Outstanding Teacher Prize Forum’.

He said the forum would culminate in a 3-day symposium, educational fair, and seminars to showcase evidenced-based projects of the Ministry of Education and it’s institutions as well as research findings from academia, advertisement, showcase of educational materials among others.

He said in addition to the Ghana’s Most Outstanding Teacher Award, other awards category that will be honoured are the best Pre-School Teacher, the best Primary School Teacher, the best Junior High School Teacher, the best Senior High School Teacher, the best special school and HIV/AIDs Most Alert School.

Mr Owusu said the most outstanding teacher takes home a three bedroom house plus five hundred thousand endowment fund, while the first runner-up goes with a 4×4 Pickup, and the second runner-up goes with a saloon car.