Gov’t Justifies Edu. Reforms

THE MINISTER of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has said it makes sense for his Ministry to embark on rigorous reforms of the educational sector.

According to him, series of surveys conducted about the educational sector during the last 30 years proved that Ghana’s education was on its knees.

Dr. Opoku Prempeh, widely known as ‘Napo’, said immediate rigorous reforms is needed to address the unimpressive situation.

He said the various reforms were meant to improve the standards of education in the country and so all stakeholders should give their maximum support.

According to him, the reforms had nothing to do with partisan politics, disclosing that some of the best brains in the educational sector had been grouped to make the reforms.

Napo was speaking over the weekend at the St Louis College of Education in the Ashanti Region capital, Kumasi, during their 15th Congregation ceremony.

The Minister also used the occasion to launch the Gh 4.6 million Transition Support Fund for the 46 Public Colleges of Education in the country to help improve their efficiency.

He urged the colleges of education to position themselves properly so they could access the funds to improve the quality of their teaching and non-teaching staff.

The Education Minister admonished the fresh graduates to put what they have learnt in school for three years into action to help the state to produce quality human resource.

The occasion was themed ‘Equipping Teacher Trainees with Professional Attitudes, Values, Knowledge and Practice to be Agents of Societal Transformation.

Further explaining the ¢4.6 million Transition Support Fund for teaching and non-teaching staff in all 46 Public Colleges of Education, Dr Opoku Prempeh said “The Government of H.E Nana Akufo Addo will continue to work and make sure that Ghana’s teaching graduates are equipped to deliver high-quality, inspirational teaching in schools.”

He explained that the ¢4.6 million Transition Support Fund is an investment which the Ministry of Education is making, with the assistance of UK aid (through the Transforming Teacher Education and Learning in Ghana Programme), to upgrade the qualifications of teaching and non-teaching staff across all 46 public Colleges of Education.

He said the fund will help to support the Ministry of Education’s ongoing efforts to ensure that all tutors have at least a Masters in Research degree by 2022 and that all government owned Colleges of Education will be able to access up to ¢100,000 each which they can then use for the professional development and upgrading of their staff.

Dr Opoku Prempeh explained further: “To access this, ¢100,000, each College will have to demonstrate that they are implementing the new B.Ed curriculum in line with two key national policy documents- the National Teachers’ Standards (NTS) and the National Teacher Education Curriculum Framework (NTECF).

“The National Teachers’ Standards (NTS) – sets out what is meant by a ‘good teacher’ and the National Teacher Education Curriculum Framework (NTECF) – sets out what is required in initial teacher training to produce ‘good teachers’”, he added.