Front page Headline ( 50% OF BASIC SCHOOL TEACHERS HAVE NO TRAINING)

 50% OF BASIC SCHOOL TEACHERS  HAVE NO TRAINING


A teacher at the basic school teaching under tree



 By Charlie Anderson ( Project Abroad)

The challenges facing education in Ghana were thrown into stark focus  when Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah  revealed that half of the teachers at basic schools are untrained.

Speaking at the matriculation of Distance Education students at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Professor Anamuah-Mensah highlighted the shortcomings of primary education in Ghana. “Of the total number of basic school teachers”, he announced, “49.3% are untrained.”

A breakdown of this figure shows that the highest number of untrained teachers is found at the kindergarten and primary levels, where 72.4% of the 42,128 teachers have no training. At the primary level this falls to 50.5% of 126,596 teachers, and drops again to 37% of the 90,687 teaching at junior high.

Basic education in Ghana faces serious problems already, with rising enrolment at basic schools meaning that “a total of 45,000 extra teachers will be needed” in order to provide universal basic education. This dearth of teachers at the primary level is not a Ghanaian problem, but a global one. Worldwide, ten million teachers “are needed to meet the target of universal primary education by 2015”. Of this number, four million will be required by sub-Saharan Africa alone.

The key to rectifying the teacher shortfall in Ghana, though, “is not through conventional teacher training”, but rather through the rise of distance education, which Professor Anamuah-Mensah believes “has and will continue to be critical because the demand for teachers is so huge”.



Professor Anamuah-Mensah

 The challenges for Ghanaian education, however, are not confined just to the basic schools, and the professor was quick to emphasise the issues facing the tertiary sector in particular. “The learning challenge in Ghana is huge at all levels” he warned. “At the tertiary level, traditional approaches to learning are inadequate in meeting the challenge of scale”.

This, he believes, again suggests an increase in the role of distance education. “A majority of people, especially the youth, are denied access to tertiary education. Distance education provides the technology for delivering quality learning, and for reaching marginalized people at lower cost”. Professor Anamuah-Mensah believes that, with as little as 6% of those aged between 18 and 24 enrolled in tertiary institutions, education attainable “to a wider group who otherwise would not have had access” is a step in the right direction for Ghana.

Although the professor voiced a raft of concerns regarding the education system, he was keen to point out that quality education is something worth striving for. “Of the many things needed to make development happen, one that cuts across all situations is learning. Learning is the pillar upon which modern nations attain total development.”