MoF, NTC Partners GNACOPS  To Offer Training To 2000  Private School Teachers

The Registrar for National Teaching Council (NTC), Dr. Christian Addai-Poku, has said there are about 30% of teachers in Ghana who are not qualified to teach in the classroom, and out of this about 14,000 are currently working with the Ghana Education Service (GES).

Dr. Addai-Poku made this statement during the launch of Private School Teacher Continuous Professional Development (PST-CPD), where he said the council is mandated to ensure that by the close of this year, only teachers with the requested skills and qualifications are only allowed to teach in our schools.

 Dr. Addai-Poku explained that the unqualified teachers include graduates from Junior High schools, Senior High Schools, and universities.  

Dr. Addai-Poku added that the program is sponsored by the Ministry Finance, the National Teaching Council, and other stakeholders who partnered with the Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS) through the Obaatam Care Programme to train at least 2000 private school teachers as part of a government effort to license all teachers in the country.

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He said the program forms the basis of training unqualified teachers to equip them with the best practices on how to teach literacy and numeracy and also in-depth knowledge of professional practice and conduct.

In all, about 2000 unqualified teachers are going to benefit and be issued with a temporary license which will qualify the private school teachers to be in the classroom whiles they wait for the processes leading to obtaining a full license.

“Over the year, our education system has leveraged the readiness and availability of non-professional teachers to deliver education in the country and the government is working hard to close the gap of qualified teachers in both private and public school,” he stated.

He said as of now, there are about 70% of private school teachers are not professional.

The registrar said the program to equip and train 48 master trainers who will move across the country and train private school teachers to acquire the basic skills that will help them efficiently handle their classes.

“It is important to note that this training as important as it is does not guarantee participants the license to teach and NTC requires that all in-service teachers in both private and public schools undertake parodic training to ensure quality delivery of lessons to learners.”

“It requires that teachers both private or public schools undergo continuing professional development programs to update their knowledge and skills to conform to the changing body of knowledge and skills, curricula and new policies in education,” he stated.       

He added that NTC is not interested in laying off unqualified teachers but rather intends to undertake programs and initiatives aimed at ensuring that the Ghanaian teacher attains the highest professional status.

However, those who are unable to position themselves like taking advantage of what GNACOPS is doing will have to find their way out of the system.

He added that NTC will ensure that about 70% of teachers in all private schools who are unqualified have the requisite teacher training certificate and license to practice as teachers. This means that all unqualified teachers will have to as a matter of urgency start taking steps to upgrade themselves and become qualified.

“I will urge all qualified teachers, especially in all the private schools to apply for the teacher's license currently going on throughout the country to do so because, by law, it is the only authorization to teach currently in Ghana.” 

Dr. Addai-Poku said as part of the requirement the ensure private teachers are trained, NTC has introduced entrance exams to ensure that “we get it right from the start. We need the right people to be trained as teachers so that when they can come out, we are sure that most of them will meet our fitness to teach the test.”

Speaking at the launch, the Executive Director of GNACOPS, Mr. Enoch Kwasi Gyetuah said the four days training will be done for 48 master trainers of private school teachers who intend to train 2000 teachers nationwide and issued with a temporary license in addition to plans in place to liaise with the University of Education Winneba to offer courses leading to acquiring full teacher license.

The Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS) in collaboration with the National Teaching Council (NTC) under the auspices of the Ministry of Education has launched a training program dubbed "Private School Teachers Continuous Professional Development (PST-CPD)", under the theme, "Preparing Private School Teachers Into The Teaching Profession Through Teacher Competency Training For Quality Teaching and Learning In Ghana". 

This initiative is aimed at preparing and promoting teacher professionalism in the private education sector, and therefore merit successful trainees a competency certificate duly recognized by the Ministry of Education and its Agencies.

As part of the implementation strategies, NTC is currently training  48 College of Education tutors,  at Atomic Energy Commission in Accra,  who would then be deployed to 24 learning centers created across the country to deliver these bespoke training modules.

Mr. Gyetuah said the Ministry of Finance, and for that matter, the government of Ghana through the National Training and Retraining Programme of the Ghana Covid-19 Alleviation and Revitalization of Enterprises and Support (Ghana CARES “OBAATAN PA”) Programme has decided to absorb all the financial components of this training.

He said the facilitators who will be giving tuition to the master trainers are drawn from the University of Cape Coast and also from all teacher training colleges across the country and used the occasion to thank NTC for their continuous support of ensuring that private education in Ghana take a shape.

 Mr. Gyetuah said the ongoing PST-CPD is not going to target only teachers but also look at positioning school proprietors adding that after four days of intensive training, the master trainers would be sent out to train all private school teachers who want to upgrade and remain in the classroom.