Training of teachers, teaching methods need paradigm shift
The Director of Neogenics Education, an educational consultancy organisation, Mr Grant Bulmuo, has called for a paradigm shift in the training of teachers and teaching methods to improve standards of education.
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With advancement in technology, the proliferation of new ideas and globalisation, he said, more qualified teachers were needed to raise effective communicators and critical and creative thinkers.
He said the desired impact of quality of education could not be achieved without committed and quality teachers, stressing that “a teacher is the most important resource in the educational process and a nation can never rise above the quality of its teachers and education”.
‘Accidental teachers’
Mr Bulmuo was speaking at a conference aimed at improving the effectiveness of teachers and educational professionals in the classroom to enable them to better train the 21st century learner.
Organised by Neogenics Education, the training, dubbed: “Global super teachers conference”, brought together teachers and school proprietresses from the private and the public sectors.
Mr Bulmuo bemoaned instances when people chose the teaching profession because they did not have any alternative, saying: “I did an analysis and the outcome indicated that not less than 50 per cent of our teachers are in the classroom not by their will but because they do not have an alternative.”
He said such teachers who were qualified as “accidental teachers” were the same ones that the country depended on to train and raise tomorrow’s leaders.
To improve on the results of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), he said, the way of training of teachers in itself needed to change, while curricula too needed to be looked at again.
Analytical structures
While some contents of the curricula were not needed, Mr Bulmuo suggested that teachers needed to be trained in the classroom taking into consideration advancement in technology and the proliferation of new ideas.
In addition, he said, classroom structures needed to be re-defined to make them more analytical and interactive.
According to him, the conference, which formed part of the organisation’s approach to augment government’s efforts, was also to create a platform for collaboration and networking to enable teachers to share ideas and network.
An official of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mr Thomas Musah, commended the organisation, saying that such training refreshed teachers and kept them abreast of new trends.
He said professional development was very key to enhancing the performance of teachers.
