More students apply to enter colleges of education
Statistics available at the various colleges of education indicate an increase in the demand for entrance into the said institutions since the government gave the green light for the colleges to run degree programmes.
The statistics show that over 40,000 qualified applicants have so far submitted application forms for consideration as compared to the previous year’s figures that hovered around 18,000.
Scepticism
The development, according to the Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah, was in contrast to speculations that the change from diploma to degree would lower the morale of the applicants.
In an interview in Accra on Friday, September 14, 2018, Prof Yankah said when the decision came up to convert the diploma awarding institutions into degree awarding ones, one important aspect which raised a number of questions was how popular it was going to be.
“Is it going to weaken the colleges system because they are going to make it unattractive to prospective students because of issues of allowances?”, he asked.
Increase in demand
“The truth is that since this was announced and preparation started towards the conversion to university campuses, the demand for entrance into the colleges of education has dramatically risen,” Prof Yankah told the Daily Graphic.
He said even though it did not mean that all those who applied would be taken, “the bottom line is that there has been a dramatic increase in the volumes of applications heading towards the newly structured colleges of education.”
Prof. Yankah stated that the high volumes of applications meant that there had been a general acceptance for the four-year training leading to the award of degrees.
Infrastructure and staffing capacities
“We hope the respective colleges of education will have the infrastructural capacity and staffing capacity to meet the increasing needs for the newly structured colleges of education,’’ Prof. Yankah stated.
Teacher Licensure Examination
Touching on the recently held teacher licensure examination, he contended that it was a huge success, downplaying the examination malpractice that characterised the examination at some centres.
Describing the challenges that bedevilled some of the examination centres, Prof. Yankah expressed the belief that those were some of the teething problems that came along with any new policy and he was convinced that those challenges would be ironed out.
He said even though there were initial protests and expression of reservations, the numbers that turned out to write the examination was overwhelming, 29,000.
He said even though the National Teaching Council (NTC) initially expected 20,000 candidates, “at the end of the day, the number rose to 29,000.