NTC, T-TEL school student teachers on standards
The National Teaching Council (NTC) and the Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL) have ended a month-long sensitisation programme to ensure that student teachers and staff of the colleges of education have a good understanding of the National Teachers’ Standards (NTS) and the Teacher Professionalisation Processes (TPP), including teacher licensing.
It was also aimed at further enhancing the relationship between the NTC and the colleges of education in the country.
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The sensitisation team, which was made up of seven members from the NTC, visited 48 colleges of education and engaged with staff and students on the NTS and the TPP with quality assurance provided by the T-TEL zonal team.
Feedback
Briefing the Daily Graphic on the programme, the Ag Executive Secretary of the NTC, Mr Christian Addai-Poku, said the orientation on the TPP focused on the teacher licensing and related activities.
He said the participant’s feedback indicated that they now had a better understanding of the NTC’s vision, mission and mandate as were presented as well as the NTS with emphasis on the three main domains of professional values and attitudes, professional knowledge and professional practice.
“The participant’s feedback indicated that they now had a better understanding of the processes involved in the Teacher Professionalisation such as completion of initial teacher preparation, participation in Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE), induction year and its core activities, licensing and continuing professional development,” Mr Addai-Poku explained.
He said there was also a discussion on making the NTS, a course of study at the colleges of education if licensing was for both private and public colleges of education that were also involved in the sensitisation and the GTLE.
Participation
Mr Addai-Poku commended the colleges of education for the massive participation in the engagement, particularly where leadership of the colleges informed their staff of the meeting well in advance, but were, however, concerned about attendance in some of the colleges.
“Attendance to the engagement at Wiawso College of Education, for example, was low because the college leadership could not get the information to the participants in advance as they were involved in other college activities.
“Four of the colleges, due to various reasons did not distribute the NTS booklet to all student teachers prior to the NTC visits.
The engagement events, therefore, served as a platform to do the distribution to the rest of the students,” he said.
Lessons
He said though the programme was successful and needed to be repeated from time to time, “we realised the need to organise subsequent ones well such that our schedules would not interfere with other equally important college programmes such as off campus teaching practice and professional development sessions.”
Mr Addai-Poku gave an assurance that the feedback and the lessons learnt during the sensitisation programme would be factored into the organisation of subsequent ones.
Mr Addai-Poku explained that during the programme, the team realised that one of the reasons for student teachers seemingly resistance to the GTLE was their understanding that the diploma certificate awarded by the University of Cape Coast or University of Education, Winneba, should be sufficient enough for professional recognition and not the licence.
Licensure exams
He said because of such a perception, the student teachers had difficulty initially accepting the fact that in the TPP, Diploma in Basic Education and in the future, B.Ed. Basic Education, were part of the requirements to gain a full licence.
Mr Addai-Poku said the sensitisation programme, therefore, created a great opportunity for the team to learn from the student teachers, their fears and anxiety regarding the GTLE.
“We used the opportunity to explain the rationale behind the licensing and dispelled their fears that it is meant to deny them employment among other issues raised against the GTLE,” he told the Daily Graphic.
He was grateful to the T-TEL Ghana programme for their commitment to teacher professionalism and improving the standard of teacher education in the country.