Colleges of education increase admissions this year - Minister
The colleges of education have registered a significant increase in admission from 9,000 four years ago to 17,000 this year, the Minister of Education, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has announced.
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She said the major factor that facilitated the significant increase in the rate of admission was the substitution of students’ allowances with the students’ loan scheme.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang was addressing a durbar to climax activities marking the 90th anniversary of the Our Lady of Apostles (OLA) College of Education in Cape Coast last Saturday.
It was on the theme: “90 Years of quality teacher education in Ghana”.
The minister said the transition of the colleges to tertiary institutions was to amend the running of the colleges to fit the status, stressing that “our colleges are no longer glorified secondary schools”.
Government’s commitment
On the introduction of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in schools, she said that had contributed to improved teaching and learning, and added that the government had demonstrated its commitment to that cause by developing a national ICT policy framework for education.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang announced that the government, with support from the United Kingdom, was engaged in an intervention project, called Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL), designed to assist the colleges to train practitioners who were able to deliver quality teaching and learning in basic schools.
She touched on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), indicating that 11 had a clear bearing on education, while the remaining had indirect connection.
The minister said as a result of the many interventions put in place by the government, teacher absenteeism had dropped from 27 to seven per cent as of the end of December last year.
Examinations
She said last year the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) took the difficult decision to cancel the results of some senior high and basic schools but noted that “this year we had the examinations without one leakage”.
The minister said in the past only a few candidates in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) had over 500 as raw scores but stressed that this year 3,945 candidates scored over 500, with the highest being 564.
She commended the OLA College of Education for its invaluable contributions to the nation’s educational development, saying: “The OLA College of Education has demonstrated an amazing capacity for the holistic formation of women.”
She said currently OLA was the only female college in the country offering specialisation in Science and Mathematics programmes and turning out quality female teachers of those subjects.
Vision of founding Sisters
The Principal of the college, Rev. Sister Elizabeth Amoako-Arhen, said the college had kept faith with the vision of the founding Sisters and gave an assurance that it would continue to nurture the potential of its teacher trainees for them to acquire the needed values, skills and professional excellence necessary for sustainable national development.
She said some infrastructural projects started by the government some nine years ago were still not completed, noting that that had resulted in a lot of pressure being put on the few facilities available.
