In a bid to improve the standard of teaching and learning at the basic level, the Transforming Teacher Education and Learning programme, T-TEL will partner government to create multiple centres of excellence for colleges of education.
This will reduce pressure on institutions such as U.C.C, which is renowned for training teachers.
That is according to the Chief Technical Adviser to T-TEL, Akwasi Addae-Boahene.
Mr. Addae-Boahene made this known at the launch of the 4 year Bachelor of Education Curriculum by the University of Ghana in Accra, which is expected to be rolled out in October this year.
The University also outdoored six colleges of education which will be affiliated to it.
Ninety five professors, lecturers and College of Education tutors made up the team that drew the curriculum in a space of three months.
The 1,864 page document will be used by five public universities.
They are the University of Ghana legon, University of Education, Winneba, University of Development Studies, Kwame Nkrumah university of Science and Technology and the University of Cape Coast.
The four year curriculum which focuses on practical teaching and learning is to among other things raise the status of the teaching profession and make it attractive to new entrants.
Mr Addae-Boahene said the new curriculum aims at creating multiple center of excellence for colleges of education.
“Previously we only had the University of Cape Coast so whether it was good better or best, it has only one place. But now we want to create more”
Mr. Addae-Boahene explained why the new curriculum is unique.
“The progression in student teacher learning and skills across the 4 years has been planned in such a way that they build on each other. One big difference is also the integration of subject specific content and pedagogy.previously what happened what that you learn content separately and someone else teaches you pedagogy. What we have done now is for each subject content we embeded the pedagogical skills and competences required to deliver that content and it makes a big difference now”.
Six colleges of education were outdoored as being affiliated to the University of Ghana, they are; The College of Education, Accra, Enchi College of Education, The Evangelical Presbyterian College of Education, Gbewaa College of Education, Mount Mary College of Education and the Peki College of Education.
Chairman of the Advisory Board of the College of Education, University of Ghana, Felix Nyarko-Pong welcomed the move.
T-TEL is supporting the Colleges of Education with 4.6 million cedis for a period of two years.
Story by : Nathaniel Nartey.
