Teachers attend workshop to upgrade skills
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), in collaboration with the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF), is organising an in-service training workshop for about 1,360 selected teachers in the Western Region designed to update their knowledge and skills to provide quality education.
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The one-week programme which is on the theme, "GNAT/CTF 'Nkabom' Project Overseas in-Service Training Workshop", has been running for the past 55 years for teachers in three regions every year on a rotational basis.
Last year, the programme was held for 1,350 teachers in the Ashanti, Eastern and Volta regions.
Under the Nkabom Project, some topics have been designed for teachers serving in deprived and under-served areas to improve their teaching skills and creativity and enhance greater community participation in the development of education in their respective communities.
Furthermore, an aspect of the programme known as "The Beginning Teachers Mentorship", is to help newly posted teachers who have not served more than three years in the system to find their feet in the teaching profession in Ghana and also equip both old and new teachers with skills to mentor others.
Courses
Courses to be treated include Basic Administration, Primary Mathematics and Science, special Mathematics and Science courses for female students, junior high school (JHS) Mathematics, English, Science, French, Social Studies and Basic Design and Technology.
Others are senior high school (SHS) English, Mathematics and Integrated Science, General Paper in gender issues for all, Nkabom whole school readiness for numeracy and literacy, as well as Nkabom beginning teachers mentorship.
The eight visiting Canadian tutors will facilitate the running of the two Nkabom courses of eight classes, made up of 160 participants and also the general course on gender issues.
Purpose
Giving the purpose of the meeting at the opening ceremony at the Holy Child College of Education in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis last Monday, the Course Director, Ms Gifty Apanbil, explained that the GNAT, as a professional organisation, believed in continuous education and professional development of its members because "we are in an industry which requires constant updating of one's knowledge to become useful".
Ms Apanbil, who is also the Deputy General Secretary of Education and Professional Development, indicated that it was that belief that made the GNAT establish a whole division, headed by a deputy general secretary, to be in charge of education and professional development of its members.
Next generation
The course director pointed out that the future of the next generation was in the hands of the present crop of teachers, which meant that the future of Ghana was in the hands of teachers.
"We cannot afford to fail the Ghanaian society which has entrusted the future of the country into our hands. All teachers should strive to give nothing short of quality education to the Ghanaian child," Ms Apanbil advised.
The acting National President of the GNAT, Madam Philipa Larsen, who performed the opening ceremony, also explained that when GNAT talked of quality education in the country, it had qualified and skilled teachers in mind as drivers in the centre, hence what goes into the training of qualified teachers and maintaining them in the classroom should be of primary concern to members, the government and all other stakeholders in the education enterprise.
Gratitude
The Team Leader of the Mentoring Programme, Ms Lindsay Freedman, in her remarks gave an assurance that the CTF would continue to collaborate with the Ghanaian partners in ensuring that quality education was provided to the Ghanaian child.
The Western Regional Director of Education, Madam Enyonam Afi Amafuga, advised teachers to desist from using corporal punishment on children but rather look for alternative ways to correct them when they went wrong, adding that teachers ought to be role models to their students or pupils.
