Teachers’ capacity enhanced with skills, improved welfare incentives - President Akufo-Addo

The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has stated that under the government’s new Comprehensive National Teacher Policy, the distribution of laptop computers, enhancing of skills set and institution of appropriate welfare incentives have translated evidently translated into improved effectiveness for our educators.

According to President Akufo-Addo, the Ministry of Education and the National Teaching Council’s implementation of these policies and programmes at both the pre-service and in-service level have ensured the sustained production and maintenance of the quality teachers needed in the education transformation agenda.

He noted that, as a mark towards improving teacher quality and skill set, the National Teaching Council (NTC) instituted the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination which has ensured that graduates recruited to teach have met the professional standards set by the Regulator and that they are fit for purpose in this very important area.

Additionally, the Ministry of Education, through the NTC, he stated, has institutionalised a point-based continuous professional development system that ensures that our teachers do not remain stale, but stay competitive and relevant in the ever-dynamic world of knowledge and skills.

Within the same period, the NPP government, he said, towards ensuring the success of teachers' continuous professional development, introduced the Continuous Professional Development allowance to enable teachers afford Continuous Professional Development programmes.

The President explained that “Introducing the GH¢1,200 Continuous Professional Development Allowance, paying an intervention allowance amounting to GH¢65 million for senior high school teachers for the 2022/2023 academic year, implementing categories two and three allowances for district and regional directors of education, and ensuring a thirty percent (30%) salary increase for all teachers in 2023,” will go a long way to motivate teachers to deliver more.

He also touched on the mass distribution of laptop computers to every teacher to improve the digital skills of teachers, adding that, “I have tasked the Minister for Education, personally, to ensure that those few teachers yet to receive their laptops join the overwhelming majority who have received theirs.”

President Akufo-Addo was addressing teachers and educationists at the 6th edition of the Ghana Teacher Prize, on Thursday, 5th October, 2023, held at the Ghana Secondary Technical School, in Takoradi.

These key interventions, he indicated is testament to the NPP government’s commitment to the ‘Teacher First’ policy which ensures that “our teachers, who are central to all education reforms, are fully tooled, skilled and supported to deliver quality learning outcomes to support our development aspirations.”

President Akufo-Addo also added that just as the “Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP), have trained 75,000 teachers in Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age” at a time when the use and knowledge of technological products and tools is a pre-requisite to 21st-century teaching and learning.

Continuing, he said, “with the implementation of the Standard Based Curriculum, we have introduced Professional Learning Community Programmes, as well as Continuous Professional Development Days, in our schools to enable teachers take advantage and sharpen their skills.”

President Akufo-Addo told the gathering that, with essential focus on the benefits of critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication and digital literacy, all starts with a good teacher, the NTC, at the pre-service level, in collaboration with the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, introduced the National Teacher Education Curriculum Framework in 2018.

“This resulted in raising the minimum qualification to teach in Ghana to a bachelor’s degree. Five (5) years after the implementation of the curriculum, steps are being taken to review it to keep pace with global dynamics. Undoubtedly, improvement of quality in the teacher education institutions is a priority to Government, hence our focus on improving infrastructure and other learning resources in our colleges of education,” he disclosed.