RIESGO DE MERCADO

education was to train highly qualified citizenry to help with evangelism and to help train people who can adapt to the demands of life (Quist, 2003). This account gives a clear narrative of how education in Ghana was implemented in the colonial days. Initially it was the Danish, Dutch and English merchants who set up schools in their Forts (Christiansburg Castle Accra-Danish, Elmina Castle-Portuguese then Dutch and Cape Coast Castle-British) to educate their mulatto children by native women. Obviously

linked to the implementation of formal education in Ghana were the Christian Missionaries, who realised that the enrolment numbers were growing and in order to spread the word of God, they needed well-educated local assistants. In the initial stages of educational development, teaching in Ghana as in other parts of West Africa, was tailored on the monitorial systems, which were popular in Britain and Canada at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In this system, the limited numbers of professional teachers were short-circuited. Thus, one master or trained teacher was in charge of a school and a number of “monitors” were selected from among the students in the top of the school to help him/her. The monitors’ work was to be in charge of the “mechanical” teaching work and rote learning of the various classes. Comparable school management and pedagogic procedures were adopted in Ghana (Little, 2010; Quist, 2003).

Even though the ‘monitorial’ system was popular, it had to be abandoned in England in that it was thought of as encouraging much mechanical learning and the monitors, who were at the same time students were immature for teaching which demanded not only the teaching of the three Rs (i.e. reading, writing and arithmetic), but also the exercise of moral disposition on pupils. With the increased access and a change in curriculum content at all levels of education and the need to improve quality of teaching and learning, there was the need to train teachers who could place emphasis on political emancipation, questioning educational ends and means (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005), contents, and have the tendency to focus upon political and social issues, stressing on empowerment and personal responsibility. In effect, the new system of education demanded teachers to be experts who can reflect on their day-to-day activities in and out of the classroom rather than just being supervisors and imparters of knowledge.

Thus, there was the need to train professional teachers. Therefore, the problem of inadequate teachers had to be taken head-on by training qualified teachers, who have the commitments to help every child succeed to teach in schools. In the same vein, Ghana had to also make efforts to train professionally qualified teachers. According to Akyeampong et al. (2011), the Basel Mission started initial teacher training in the later part of 1840 at Akropong-Akuapem. In 1848, the mission established a theological seminary to train African teachers and catechists to as it were, further their aims of

evangelism (Cobbold, 2010). The Basel Mission also established two other seminaries at Osu, Accra in 1850 and at Abetifi in 1898, which was later merged with the seminary at Akropong-Akuapem (Akyeampong et al., 2011). Even though historians are not fixed on the date of establishment, it is known that the Roman Catholic Mission did set up another teachers’ college at Bla in the Trans-Volta Region of the then Gold Coast in the later part of the nineteenth century. Hence, at the close of the 1890s, there were three teacher- training colleges in Ghana (Cobbold, 2010).

In 1909, the Government in an effort to supplement the efforts of the Missions opened a teacher training college in Accra that became the teacher-training centre not only for publicly trained teachers, but also for the teachers of all other missions who had no teacher training institutions. This started as a form of partnership between the government and the missions (and more recently private individuals) in the delivery of teacher education that has existed to date (Cobbold, 2010). From 1919 there was a marked change in government policy. Governor Guggisberg established 16 guiding principles for the development of education. These stressed equal opportunities for boys and girls, co-education in certain stages, the importance of a vernacular education as the base for English education, the provision of trade schools to equip young men with craft skills and high quality teachers. The principles did not include free and compulsory basic education and educational expansion was cautious and limited by the supply of trained teachers (Little, 2010).

Nonetheless, as has been observed, the path to teacher education delivery in Ghana has been a “wavy one” (Cobbold 2010, p. 65). In other words, teacher education in Ghana has had a chequered history, “often based on ad hoc programmes to meet emergency situations and needs of the education system” (Akyeampong, 2000:24) and driven by “the fortunes sometimes of political history, the interest and fervour of the missionary factor or the availability of funds to implement policies which were deemed appropriate” (Pecku, 1998 cited in Cobbold, 2006). In fact, as Little (2010) points out, most commentators on the history of educational policy in Ghana converge on the notion that each successive policy script owes much to the policy themes set out in earlier texts. Recurring policy themes include the provision of free education and the need for a

practical, vocationally oriented education (Osei, 2006). The call for free primary education goes back to at least 1951, and that for practical, vocationally oriented education to as early as 1847, during the British colonial period. Recurring policy concerns include access, quality and costs, with varying emphases at different points in time (Little, 2010).

According to Cobbold (2010), through such uneven terrain:

Ghana has built up a teaching body comprising teachers who have been trained in courses of varied duration and nature and hold different categories of professional qualifications…. The courses and the qualifications they lead to are the products of a series of reforms and counter reforms embarked on in attempts to solve the problem of shortage of trained teachers necessitated by educational expansion as well as socio- economic and political factors (p. 65).

Teacher training colleges, which are principal institutions for training basic school teachers in Ghana have been categorized as college(s) of education (CoE) and are regarded as part of the tertiary sub-sector (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2011). The MoE’s education strategic plan (ESP) 2010-2020 has set the target for the proportion of qualified primary and junior high teachers at 95% by 2015 and the pattern of the development of CoE has been in line with achieving this objective. At present, it is estimated that less than 60% of the teaching force in basic schools are qualified. For example, of the 101,321 basic school teachers in public schools in 2009/10 academic year, 58.2% were trained and 41.8%, untrained. The MoE therefore seeks to increase the number of CoE to at least 50 by 2015 from 38 as of now to make up for the deficit in trained teachers needed.

Over the years, the CoE have produced teachers with varying qualifications through various programmes such as:

1. The regular 4-Year Post-Middle Teacher Training Course for teaching in Primary and Middle Schools

2. modular 4-Year Post-Middle Teacher Training Course also for teaching in Primary and Middle Schools,

3. Year Post-Secondary Teacher Training Course for teaching in Middle and Junior Secondary Schools

The regular 4-year post-middle teacher-training programme was originally started as a 2- year programme. The 1937/41 Education Review Report recommended a 2-year training programme for Middle School leavers leading to Teachers Certificate 'B'. Successful candidates were posted to teach in the Primary schools. These Certificate 'B' teachers were given further two years training to qualify for Certificate 'A' after two years of teaching on completion of the initial teacher training. At the launching of the Accelerated Development Plan for Education (1951), the following certifications for Primary school teachers were in existence:

a) Teacher Certificate 'B' after 2-year Post-Middle Training Course. b) Teacher Certificate 'A' (Post 'B') after obtaining Certificate 'B'.

c) Teacher Certificate 'A' after 4-year Post-Middle Training course (McWilliam & Kwamena-Poh, 1975).

In 1952, the 4-year Teacher Certificate 'A' course was suspended because of the Accelerated Development Plan for Education which led to over-rapid expansion of Primary Schools requiring large members of teachers. In its place, a crash programme to produce large numbers of Certificate ‘B’ teachers was substituted (McWilliam & Kwamena-Poh, 1975). In 1953 an Emergency Teacher Training programme that lasted 6 weeks was introduced at Saltpond in the Central Region of Ghana to give some orientation to pupil teachers. Ten more of such training programmes were opened at various centres throughout the country. With the introduction of fee-free and compulsory Primary Education following the Education Act of 1961, the C. P. P. Government under Kwame Nkrumah phased out the 2-year Certificate ‘B’ course and the Emergency Training Programme, and re-introduced the 4-year Certificate 'A' course for holders of the Middle School Certificate.

This was intended to improve upon teacher education. After 1961 there was a serious shortage of trained teachers to teach in the Training Colleges. The problem was so serious that it was thought that teachers who were not sufficiently qualified to teach in Secondary Schools could nonetheless teach in Training Colleges (Ahiabele-Addo, 1980; McWilliam & Kwamena-Poh, 1975). As at the early 1980s, there has been the exodus of trained teachers to Nigeria to look for greener pastures that, about 50% of Primary School Teachers were untrained, many of who had also been teaching for a reasonable amount of time. The national consensus was that a way should be found to train such personnel. The modular system was therefore introduced in 1982 to enable serving Pupil Teachers undergo in-service Training, organized in modules for two years. It is to be noted that the term ‘modular’ is only a descriptive term for the syllabus organized in units of lessons called modules. The advantage of this system is that serving Pupil Teachers earned their regular salary and attended the modular courses at the same time. They completed their course by spending the last two years of the course in regular residential 4-Year-Post- Middle Training Colleges for the award of the 4-Year-Post-Middle Certificate 'A'. This qualified the teachers to teach in Primary and Middle Schools (Djangmah, 1986).

Following this, a 3-Year-Post Secondary Teacher Training Course that has involved over a long period of time was introduced. In the 1940's a Post-Secondary Certificate ‘A’ programme was introduced to offer a 2-Year Post Secondary initial Teacher Training Courses. The products were assigned to teach in Middle Schools. In later years some of them found their way into the Junior Secondary Schools. At the beginning of 1964/65, 2- year further training courses for already certificated teachers in English, Science, Geography, History and Mathematics were offered in nine Training Colleges in order to meet the specialist staffing needs of Middle Schools. In 1973 two-year specialist courses in selected Training Colleges were mounted to offer subjects such as Science and Mathematics. Such teachers were posted to teach in the lower forms of Secondary Schools, Middle Schools and Post-Middle Training Colleges and to satisfy the demand to prepare teachers for the Junior Secondary Schools, the specialist programmes mentioned above were phased out in 1976 to make way for a 3-year Post Secondary quasi-specialist programme also grouped around the following subject areas:

1. Science, Mathematics, Agriculture or Home Science;

2. Social Studies, English, Ghana Languages or Religious Education; 3. Training Technology and

4. Home Science and Catering, Hairdressing, Beauty Culture, Dressmaking, Art and Crafts.

In 1979 a 3-Year Post Secondary Training course for teaching in Middle and Junior Secondary Schools replaced the quasi-specialist programme because not all the products could find placement in the then existing Junior Secondary Schools (Djangmah, 1986). Currently, there are 41 (residential) colleges of education – 38 are publicly funded and three privately run, and of the number, at least one publicly funded college located in each of the ten administrative regions in Ghana. The location of the colleges in all the regions is to meet a constitutional mandate that stipulates that, the state shall provide educational facilities at all levels in all the regions of Ghana, and shall, to the greatest extent as possible, make those facilities available to all citizens. The establishments of private intuitions are also in accordance with Article 25(2) of the 1992 constitution that states that, “every person shall have the right, at his own expense, and to establish and maintain a private school or schools at all levels”. Teachers in all the CoE are prepared to teach all subjects in the curriculum as well as techniques for multi-grade teaching. Alongside this, 18 colleges are designated to train teachers who specialize in teaching science, mathematics and/or technical skills subjects in junior high schools. Seven (female only colleges) of the 38 public CoE offer specialized courses in early childhood teaching.

The pre-service training course for primary and junior high teachers is of three years duration, of which the first two years are spent at the college, and the third year, trainees attached to a community school for practical training. Thus, colleges run a six-semester Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) programmes, dubbed, IN-IN-OUT, which involves trainees studying at least eight content related subjects and eight methodology subjects in first and second years on the programme, and spending their last year on the programme in nearby community-schools for practicum. Students spend the last term of the third year

in college to write two professional papers and present their project works to complete the three-year programme.