Government asked to be entirely in charge of training of teachers

Gwollu, UWR, Sept.7, GNA - Some non-governmental organisations (NGOs), operating in the Upper West Region, have appealed to government to be absolutely in charge of the training of teachers in Teacher Training Colleges to ensure quality education in the country. They said the practice where District, Municipal and Metropolitan Assemblies were asked to support the training of teachers at the Colleges was impacting negative on education.

The SNV Netherlands, Plan Ghana and ActionAid Ghana among others made the appeal at "Results Oriented Education Planning Workshop", at Gwollu.

The programme that was attended by the Ghana Education Service and Sissala West District Assembly discussed, assessed, and evaluated education and drew an "Annual Education Plan" that would take place from September 2009 to September 2010, to address challenges facing the education sector in the district.

They said there could be no effective teaching and learning without quality teachers and noted that the less endowed assemblies were unable to support the training of teachers to meet the required numbers of teachers needed for schools in their areas.

The NGO said some school children were being denied quality education because untrained teachers were handling them, denying the children quality education and jeopardizing their lives. "We are of the opinion that the practice is discriminatory and perpetually producing poor results at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). We are also of the fear that children in less endowed districts will create an illiterate population in the long round, which is likely to stall the total development of the country", the NGOs noted.

The NGOs called on government to support district assemblies in the region to provide accommodation for teachers in deprived areas. They also appealed to the University of Education, Winneba, to restructure its Distance Learning Progamme to coincide with vocation of schools to improve teacher/pupil contact hours at school. The NGOs pledged to help sensitize community members on the value of education and organise in-service training for untrained and trained teachers as well as circuit supervisors to improve education. The district has enrolment rate of 96 per cent, teacher-pupil ratio of 1.56, 50 kindergartens with seven trained teachers, 59 untrained teachers and a shortage of 80 trained teachers. There are also 40 primary schools in the district, with 91 trained teachers, 57 untrained teachers, a shortage of 140 teachers, 59 trained teachers, 18 untrained teachers handling 26 Junior High Schools that required 130 teachers.

Total enrolment stood at 16,096 children, dual desk available was 4820 and dual desk needed was 2487 while 104 schools were dilapidated. At the BECE the district scored 41.97 per cent for the 2006/2007 and 47.9 percent for 2007/2008. Mr. Robert Baka Wavei, Sissala West District Chief Executive (DCE), who opened the workshop, appealed to people to invest more in the education of their children. He expressed regret some people were wasting their resources on funerals to the detriment of the education of their children. The DCE said the district was endowed with arable land for the production of food crops towards poverty reduction. Mr. Wavei said the Assembly had introduced incentive packages for teachers and students who would perform well at examinations. GNA BDP/CO 8 Sept 09