Govt urged to state stand on private training colleges

Kumasi, May 17, GNA - Mr J.P. Arkorful, the Director/Proprietor of Cambridge Teacher Training College in Kumasi, on Tuesday appealed to the government to publicly declare its stand on the operations of private teacher training colleges.

Mr Arkorful said this had become imperative in view of the impediments put in the way of the Cambridge Teacher Training College to participate in the upgraded Teacher Training programme to diploma level. He told the GNA in an interview that the treatment meted out to the private teacher training college by the Ghana Education Service Council was not only unfair but also discouraging.

Mr Arkorful catalogued obstacles he had to overcome to enable him run the training college programme and said having overcome those obstacles, he was frustrated again in running the diploma programme. ''Since the inspection of facilities at the college on December 17, 2004, by a team from the Ghana Education Service (GES), I have not heard anything from the inspection team.''

He said though he had written to the Ghana Education Service Council to find out about the outcome of the inspection since April 18, 2005, he had not received any reply.

Mr. Arkorful said if the ''government subtly wants to phase out the private teacher training colleges, it must be made manifestly clear to the public so that they do not continue to waste resources on the colleges.''