Beginning September 2018/2019 academic year, all Colleges of Education in the country will be upgraded to a University Status to run a 4-year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) Degree Programme.
These Colleges, which will initially be affiliated to the University of Cape Coast and, subsequently, to other public universities, will ensure that a first degree was made the minimum requirement for teaching at any level of the country’s education system.
Under the current dispensation, teachers who completed the three-year Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) at the Colleges of Education, have to do a two-year top-up, through distance learning, at the University of Cape Coast to attain their first degree
This means that, in addition to the extra amount of money spent on getting a degree, it took trainee teachers not less than five years to get a degree.
With the introduction of the 4-year Bachelor of Education Degree, teachers will now obtain a first degree at the end of their training, to ensure that they enter the teaching service as university graduates with an increment in their salaries.
The President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who made these known in a keynote address at the 170th anniversary celebration of the Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong, in the Eastern Region on Saturday, indicated that the reforms formed part of Government’s vision to transform the country’s education delivery system to meet the needs of a 21st century economy and to produce a skilled and confident workforce to drive the nation’s agenda for industrialization and modernization.
President Akufo-Addo noted that the success of all modern nations that had experienced extraordinary results in the formation of human capital and economic development, such as Singapore, Finland, Korea and Canada, had demonstrated that teacher-quality was the single most important determinant of their success.
He said for Ghana to be successful as a nation, it needed to prioritize the training of quality and motivated teachers, as it would only take a crop of well-trained and motivated teachers to deliver the educated and skilled workforce needed to transform the country’s economy.
To that effect, he said, Government had taken a number of measures including an 11 percent increase in teachers’ basic salaries and the clearing of all accrued arrears owed teachers between 2013 and 2016, with respect to travel allowances, transfer grants and overtime allowances, instituted an insurance package for teachers with SIC Life, which has been agreed on with the teacher unions and reinstituted teacher trainee allowances.
President Akufo-Addo said Government would restore the teaching profession to the status it once enjoyed and make it an attractive career choice.
With a focus on improving and strengthening the quality of technical and vocational education and training, he said Government had begun the supply of equipment to boost the capacity of the Colleges of Education that specialized in technical and vocational teacher training.
He mentioned Mampong Technical College of Education which, some four days ago, had benefitted from the equipment supply, having received two thousand, five hundred and eighty-six (2,586) pieces of assorted Science, ICT, Technical and Vocational equipment.
President Akufo-Addo gave the assurance that all other Technical Colleges of Education, including the Presbyterian College of Education, would, in the course of the year, receive their due share.
Source: Allafrica
