GES Director-General calls for team work

Accra, June 19, GNA - Mr Jacob A.M. Kor, Acting Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), has called for teamwork among stakeholders in education so as to achieve the aspirations of the sector.

Speaking at his maiden meeting with heads of educational institutions and stakeholders in the Greater Accra Region on Thursday, Mr Kor said to achieve the aims of education, stakeholders, including the leadership of the GES, teachers, students, and labour unions, must play their roles effectively.

This, he said, should be done with the best interests of the children and the various stakeholders, while striving to serve them to the best of their ability.

He said leaders must have excellent interpersonal relations with their colleagues if they are to be successful in their roles.

Mr Kor said the most effective way to address some challenges in the sector such as declining performance, was not to apportion blame but to collectively work to address them.

He said there was the need to tackle teacher professionalism by addressing issues of teacher absenteeism, lateness and unpreparedness for teaching since these factors contribute to the student’s poor performance.

Mr Kor urged teachers to desist from the use of indecent language in the classroom and branding of children as their words had an effect on the children saying they should rather encourage the students to succeed.

“We cannot do anything without the support of the stakeholders” he said and tasked the District Directors of Education and heads of schools to respect the inputs of stakeholders like Parent-Teacher Associations, labour unions and community members.”

He said parents as first teachers played an important role in their children’s education and entreated parents to dialogue with teachers and other officials on issues affecting their wards’ education.

“Teaching is a calling like that of reverend fathers or Imams and if we serve the children with love, we will receive blessings and live long on earth. Our reward will be on earth, not in heaven,” Mr Kor said.

He urged students, as stakeholders in education, to be prepared to study with zeal to be able to pass their examinations without having to resort to cheating.

With reference to the cancellation of some papers in the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Exams (BECE), he noted that examination malpractices had become a canker in the sector and signalled the need to re-strategise.

Source: GNA

GES recommends counselling for BECE candidates

Accra, June 19, GNA - Mr Jacob A.M. Kor, the Acting Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), has directed Heads of Basic Schools to organise counselling sessions for candidates in the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

In a statement confirming the cancellation of five papers of the BECE due to the mass leakage of the questions, Mr Kor said the counselling was necessary as some of the candidates may suffer psychological effects due to the cancellation.

He stressed that: “The move would ensure that their confidence does not wane as they continue to write other papers.”

Mr Kor also tasked teachers to ensure that the new dates for re-writing of the cancelled papers - 29th and 30th June - were well communicated to the students and parents in order to avoid any absenteeism.

He also entreated teachers to educate parents on the need to support their children to take away any fears they might be harbouring.

“GES takes the opportunity to apologise to all parents, guardians and candidates for the unfortunate incidence and the inconvenience caused,” he concluded.

The West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), on Wednesday, announced the cancellation of five papers in the ongoing BECE, citing massive leakage of examination papers.

The affected papers are English Paper Two, Mathematics Paper Two, Integrated Science, Religious and Moral Education (RME) Paper Two and Social Studies.

Source: GNA

Intense competition cause of BECE leakage – Prof Dominic Fobih

Former Education Minister Prof Dominic Fobih has attributed the leakage of the Basic education Certificate Examination papers to intense competition between schools to outperform each other.

According to him, because most schools don’t want to score zeros or low marks during the BECE examination, they do anything to ensure that their students pass.

This encourages the leakage of the papers.

Prof Fobih’s comment follows the leakage and subsequent cancellation of five subjects in the ongoing BECE supervised and conducted by the West African Examination Council (WAEC).

A statement confirming the cancelation was released by the examination administration body Wednesday.

Signed by Mrs. Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, Deputy Director of Public Affairs, the statement listed the following papers are having been "compromised".

Prof. Dominic Fobih was Minister of Education in the erstwhile Kufuor administration.

Speaking on Adom FM’s morning show ‘Dwaso Nsem” Thursday, Fobih believes there is no way students should be blamed for the leakage adding that it was simply a leadership problem.

But he did not spare the teachers and education authorities of blame.

Prof Fobih fears that this form of corruption, if not dealt with immediately will affect the integrity and moral judgment of the students in the long term.

He called on government and the stakeholders in the education sector to, as a matter of urgency, modify the
objectives of the BECE.

The former Member of Parliament for Assin South Constituency said pupils do not have to qualify to go to SHS.

He said it is important to make SHS the mandatory terminal point, instead of using the BECE to terminate some pupils’ education.

Former Education Minister Dominic Fobih is calling for the complete restructuring of the BECE because “it lacks depth”.

According to the Professor, BECE should be an exam that seeks to identify the strengths of pupils and place them in their various preferred programmes like business, science, visual and arts at the Senior High
School (SHS) level.

In his view,” it is necessary to change the focus of the BECE” from its current selective system to a placement system which will be more beneficial to the student.

There is no need to sift through the candidates and take the supposed brilliant ones to SHS, every student’s strength in a particular subject or programme should be the standpoint for SHS education.

Source: Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba
Akwa

Teacher charged following death of coconut- climbing student

The teacher who allegedly caused the death of the 17-year-old student of the Suhum Aboabo Sonkor Presbyterian Basic School in the Eastern region, has been remanded into police custody.

Suhum police say Richard Djamgba’s teacher known only as “Sir Johnson” was arrested three days ago after he returned to the town on private business.

Sir Johnson, a Science teacher, in October last year, forced his pupil Richard Djamgba to climb a coconut
tree to pluck a fruit for him to quench his thirst.

He fell at least 15 feet from the tree and was left paralyzed. He developed urine retention and other complications.

Lack of funds deprived him of surgery at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. Richard Djamgba died last weekend.

According to Joy News’ Eastern regional correspondent Kofi Siaw, the teacher was transferred out of the school following the incident.

But the police took advantage of his return to arrest him.

The previous charge of murder has been changed to exposure to danger.

Sir Johnson looked shaken and intimidated when he appeared at the Suhum magistrate court Thursday.

He was said to have come in the company of some teachers who were showing solidarity to him.

The court has now remanded him into custody to reappear on June 30.

Source: Myjoyonline.com

Invigilators to boycott BECE over unpaid transport fares

Some invigilators and supervisors of the on-going Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in Ashanti Region are threatening to boycott the exercise.

According to them, the Ghana Education Service (GES) owes them transportation fares from last year and until that is settled, they will withdraw their services as invigilators.

The Ashanti Region has the highest number of candidates for the week long examination.

A total of, 87,815 made up of 45,197 boys and 42,618 girls.

The supervisor of the invigilators, Owusu Sakyi told Citi News, the money owed them from last year is just GHC 50 but after taxes, their take home is GHC 33

He stated that the invigilators say they will invigilate until 3pm on Wednesday and if “the government does not release the money, they will go back to their classrooms and teach on Thursday and Friday.”

Mr. Sakyi pointed out that the teachers are aggrieved because they commute from their various stations to the examination centers therefore, it is important that their transportation fares are paid.

Meanwhile following reported cases of female student absenteeism in the examination, the Education Ministry is promising to investigate the matter.

Deputy Education Minister in charge of Pre-Tertiary Education, Alex Kyeremeh told Citi News, such developments affect government’s quest to bridge the gender parity gap, hence, their resolve to investigate and bring an end to such happenings.

“If you look at the general statistics for this year, we are bridging the gender parity gap and those absent, I don’t think it’s so much but we’ve also asked the supervisors at the various centres to do their own investigations since headteachers were not there for further interrogation,” he said.

Source: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Headmaster of Wurapong M/A Junior High School Attends School Twice A Week

Teachers At Wurapong M/A Junior High School in the Yilo Krobo district of the Eastern Region have fled the community due to incessant attacks on them by armed robbers.

The situation is affecting academic work in the school since the teachers took the decision last week. Four teachers, including the headmaster of the school, have been robbed once or had their rooms ransacked by unknown persons in the community.

This has compelled some of the teachers and the headmaster of the school to vacate the community for safety reasons.

“Last week for instance, I attended school twice, just like my other colleagues, we go to school as and when we get the means,” headmaster of the school, Frank Narh Abublah revealed in an interview with the Daily Heritage.

The latest attack happened last week when the headmaster of the school, Frank Narh Abublah, escaped attack by some suspected armed robbers.

According to the headmaster, the criminals broke into his room at night and ransacked the room, took away one out of two laptops and GHC700.00. He said, fortunately for him, he was out of town on that fateful day.

The headmaster further explained that the assistant headmistress and two other teachers have also suffered similar attacks in which valuable items were stolen.

He said, this has put fear in the teachers in the community, leading to some of them deserting their posts to avert any misfortune.

He added that, four out of five teachers have been compelled to live with their families in Koforidua, Nkurakan and Agogo and only attend school when they have the transportation means.

The headmaster stated that the robbery cases have been reported to the police, but no arrests have been made yet.

He said the school's management committee has been informed about their decision not to live in the community again until the perpetrators are brought to book.

The assembly member for the area, Hon. Opeley assured that the community is making frantic efforts to arrest the perpetrators.

According to him, announcements have been made throughout the village through the 'gong gong beater' to the effect that residents in the community must help apprehend the suspects.


Source: Daily Heritage

Teachers Have The Power To Change The Country

Ms Marian Lily Adams, a Retired Senior Lecturer of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), has entreated government to cherish teachers in the country, since they wield the power to educate any nation’s human resources.

Ms Adams explained that teachers were one of the pillars of the society and the country, and without dedicated and efficient teachers no nation could develop.

The Retired Senior Lecturer made this statement at the eighth Congregation of the Holy Child College of Education in Takoradi on the theme: “The Teacher-A Tool for Development.”

A total number of 184 graduated this year.

Ms Adams, an old student of the college, noted that no other personality could have an influence more profound than a teacher, because students were deeply affected by a teacher’s love and actions.

The Principal of the College, Mrs. Margaret Boadiwa Lemaire, said the students continued to produce excellent results due to the dedicated staff.

She urged the graduands to further their education, and not to relapse into mediocrity.

Mrs. Lemaire revealed that some infrastructure projects in the college, such has the school library, had been completed, while the refurbishment of other projects such as the college's Assembly Hall and classroom blocks were in progress, to increase the seating capacity, and also to upgrade the college to befit its current state.

The Principal expressed gratitude to the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETfund), stakeholders, benefactors and friends, for their immense support towards the development of the school.

She appealed to government and other corporate entities to come to the aid of the College with the provision of infrastructure and the construction of potable roads.

Miss Ajara Bassaw, overall best student, appealed to government to tackle the issue of a high level of graduate unemployment to enhance the human resource of the country.


Source: GNA

AIMS-Ghana to improve study of Maths

Donkorkrom (E/R), June 3, GNA - The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Ghana (AIMS-Ghana) is embarking on outreach programmes to promote teaching and learning of Mathematics at all levels of education in Ghana.

The programme would target teachers and pupils in the most deprived areas to help bridge the gap between pupils/students in rural areas and their counterparts in urban centres.

The initiative is a partnership between the Government through the Ministry of Education and AIMS-Ghana to train teachers in modern ways of teaching Mathematics and demystify the subject as being considered as an abstract one.

AIMS is a non-profit making Pan-African Network of Mathematical Centres in Africa.

The Kwahu Afram Plains North District is being selected to pilot the teacher training exercise.

To this end, a total of 50 teachers at the pre-tertiary level in the District have been selected for a five-day intensive training at Donkorkrom.

Speaking on behalf of Professor Francis K. A. Allotey, the President of AIMS-Ghana, to open the five-day training programme, Ms Sarah Osei, a Career Development and External Relations Manager for AIMS-Ghana, stated that the teaching and learning of Mathematics was a problem in Ghana.

Therefore, she said, AIMS-Ghana was committed to liaising with all stakeholders in education to raise pupils’ interest in learning the subject.

She noted Mathematics was the bedrock of Modern Economies, therefore, it was critical to whip up the interest in studying Mathematics to demystify it.

“Despite the importance of Mathematical and Quantitative Skills, there is a decline in the number of skilled Mathematics teachers at the pre-tertiary level in Ghana,” she said.

According to Ms Osei, Mathematics equipped individuals to think logically and become problem solvers, explaining that one of the key skills needed in Ghana’s developmental agenda was the development of Mathematical talents.

She said AIMS, as Africa’s first network of centres of excellence for post-graduate scientific training, research, industry and public engagement in Mathematical Sciences, had the objective of delivering excellent teaching, research and education in Mathematical Sciences.

“AIMS has it as a mission to enable Africa’s brightest students flourish as independent thinkers, problem solvers and innovators capable of propelling Africa’s future scientific, industrial, educational and economic self-sufficiency,” she added.

Ms Osei urged the participants to take advantage of the training and share their challenges in teaching Mathematics with the facilitators for a holistic training that could impart directly on pupils’ performance.

Mr Gabriel Adu, the District Education Director for Afram Plains North, expressed appreciation to AIMS-Ghana for choosing the district for the pilot project, and pledged his outfit’s support in making the training programme a success and to help raise performance in mathematics in the district.

AIMS has established centres of excellence in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon and Tanzania and aims at establishing 15 centres of excellence across Africa by 2025.

Meanwhile, the Institute has produced more than 731 graduates from 41 African nations with more than 30 per cent of these scholars being women.

Source: GNA

Teachers advised to use innovative means to teach

A psychologist, Dr Annie Gaisie has stressed the need for teachers to use innovative methods to understand the minds and attitudes of school pupils.

According to her, simple innovative methods like dance can help teachers to communicate with pupils and understand them better.

The psychologist said this at a Social Action Day program organized at Brainy Bairn School at West Legon in Accra.

Dance therapy is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body.

Dr Gaisie who participated in the school’s Social Action Day program introduced the therapy to teachers and parents of the Brainy Bairn School.

She said when children listen to the lyrics of good music and dance, the brain releases “happy hormones” to every part of the body that help a child to communicate anger, stress, frustrations, abuse and more.

She added, “as they dance, they dance the stress and everything out. It is just like pushing out your anxiety and everything”.

Head teacher of Brainy Bairn, Akweley Odonkor said the school will adopt the method to help some of its pupils “who are not forthcoming when it comes to contributing in class”. 

She was optimistic both teachers and pupils will  benefit greatly from the therapy.

“We have many children struggling to settle down, attention seekers…teachers will be able to come up with five minutes dance moves that will cause children to reorient themselves and settle for the day”, she said.


By: Eugenia Tenkorang/citifmonline.com/Ghana

45,000 extra teachers needed to effect universal basic education - Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah

About 45,000 extra teachers are needed to provide universal basic education in the country, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, has said.


He was addressing the first annual Easter Forum on the theme: “Distance Education: Our hope for sustainable human capacity development in Ghana”, at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) yesterday.

Currently, he said, there were 260,000 basic school teachers, half of which were untrained.

Statistics show that most untrained teachers are found at the kindergarten and the primary levels, where 72.4 per cent of the 42,128 teachers have no training.

At the primary level, this falls to 50.5 per cent of 126,596 teachers, and drops again to 37 per cent of the 90,687 teachers at the junior high school level.

Prof Anamuah-Mensah said basic education in the country faced a serious problem, with about 800,000 children of school age currently out of school.


Tertiary education

At the tertiary level of education, he said, traditional approaches to learning were inadequate to overcome the challenge and, therefore, advocated distance education as a panacea to propel access to education.

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


Lack of co-ordination

Prof Anamuah-Mensah, however, bemoaned the un-coordinated nature of distance education in the country, noting that more than 10 years after distance education was introduced, it was yet to be properly co-ordinated.

The Vice-Chancellor of the UCC, Prof. D.D. Kuupole, stressed the urgent need for collaboration among tertiary institutions to provide quality education, adding, “We need to have a guiding principle on where we are going.”

“So many of us have been left out; we need to strategise and bring everybody on board,” he stressed.

In a speech read on his behalf, the Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Major Albert Don-Chebe (retd), said only about 68,000 people procured university degrees in Ghana a year, saying that was woefully inadequate for human resource development in the country.

He pledged the corporation’s commitment to partner the UCC to provide quality education for Ghanaians.


Source: Timothy Gobah, graphic.com.gh

3 more teachers arrested in Adjena Secondary Technical School exam fraud

Three more teachers at the Adjena Secondary Technical School in the Eastern Region have been arrested for allegedly helping students cheat in the ongoing West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).

This brings to six the number of people arrested in connection with the exam malpractice.

The arrests follow Joy News’ investigation which revealed how a syndicate is leaking examination papers and compromising the entire 2015 West Africa exams.

Public Relations Officer at the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service, Joseph Benefo Darkwa, says the suspects will be sent to court before Wednesday.

"We have in addition to the trio who were arrested, intelligence have led to the arrest of another three people," he told Joy FM.

"We are still investigating. After investigations, we will be able to tell which people are culpable.

"If we finish with our investigations, then they will be put before court today but if we are not through with our investigations then we will send them to court tomorrow.

"But we are hoping that we complete our investigations today," he assured.

Source: Ghana|Myjoyonline.com

Increase the use of practical teaching methods - education experts

Tamale, April 21, GNA - Experts in education have called for an increase in the use of teaching and learning methods that are practical and centred on the learner in schools in Ghana.

According to them, the performance of students or pupils could improve significantly if teachers engaged them in learning activities that promoted interests and understanding in the subjects being taught.

Such learning activities, known as Active Learning methods, include role play, group work, creative writing, storytelling, simulation, experimentation and demonstration.

They made the call at a ceremony in Tamale organised to showcase the successes of the Basic Education Quality Improvement Programme (BEQUIP), a project under which a number of teachers, college tutors and other education officers were trained to improve their use of Active Learning methods.

Two international development organisations, IBIS and EDUKANS, and the University of Amsterdam collaborated with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and selected teacher training colleges to implement the project in parts of the Northern, Upper East and the Volta regions.

Mr Tirso Dos Santos, UNESCO's Head of Office and Representative to Ghana, Mr Ahmed Hamza Tijani, IBIS' Ghana Country Director, Mr Gershon Dorfe, Acting Deputy Director of the Teacher Education Division of the GES and Upper East Regional Director of Education were among the key speakers.

Mr Tijani said the BEQUIP project focused on increasing the use of Active Learning methods in schools in order to enhance students’ learning outcomes saying, "This is simply because research has proven that children learn better when they are engaged in practice, rather than just theory".

Mr Tijani underscored the need to replicate or upscale such interventions in Ghana, adding that "we are open to partner with other organisations on these interventions and we are positive that such partnerships would begin from here."

Mr Gerson Dorfe, announced that the Ghana Education Service (GES) would soon register and license teachers in the country, under a new policy known as Pre-tertiary Teacher Professional Development and Management (PTPDM) programme.

He said the new policy had a new career progression path starting from a Beginning Teacher to Licence Teacher down to Senior Director, which would eventually replace the existing ranking system in the Education Service.

He said the new policy is being piloted in three districts, namely, Shai Osudoku in the Grater Accra Region, Upper Manya in the Eastern Region and Ajumako Essiam Enyan District in the Central Region.

The principals of the Bagabaga College of Education in Tamale, St. John Bosco’s College of Education in Navrongo and Dambai College of Education in the Volta Region who were present, had said teacher trainees were trained on Active Learning methods, yet they failed to practice these methods after graduation.

They therefore called for greater emphasis on ensuring that teachers used learner-centred methods in the classrooms to improve education.

Source: Ghana News Agency