The Minister of Education, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh has announced that from now, only PhD holders will be allowed to lecture in a university.
"Now if you do not hold a PhD, you will not be able to teach in a university," the Education Minister said.
But most of the lecturers in our colleges of education do not hold PhD. So we are giving them time to improve their knowledge, through the British government support" he added.
Speaking at the meet the press series in Accra Tuesday, he explained further that the move was to enable the universities to develop the capacity of teachers in the colleges of education.
He was hopeful that if the lecturers of the colleges of education were part of the university, the university would help those lecturers to get onto the PhD programmes.
Dr Prempeh explained that every capacity improvement was to the benefit of the Ghanaian schoolchild to improve the learning outcomes.
He cited for instance that in Finland, even at the Kindergarten level, it was teachers with PhD while in Ghana it was diploma holders, describing it as unacceptable.
Dr Prempeh explained that, it was as a result of it that government had decided that all teacher trainees would be degree holders.
He explained that even though producing graduates would have an implication on the government budget, “government is more interested in the learning outcomes and not the budget.”
Merger
Dr Prempeh hinted that the Ghana Institute of Journalism, the Ghana Institute of languages and the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) would be merged to form a single university.
He said each of the three would be a school that would be awarding their own degrees, explaining that the idea was long mooted by the previous government and that it was not anything new.
Dr Prempeh explained that each of the three wanted to stand as autonomousuniversity, but that was not accepted, explaining that it was to ensure that resources were maximized.
National service for trainees
He said after initial protest from the teacher trainees against the directive that they were to go through national service under the National Service Secretariat (NSS) so far 16,000 of them had registered with the secretariat to do the service.
“I met with the coalition of newly trained teachers and the Teacher trainee association of Ghana and they went and met with the GES and finally signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to do the national service,” he explained.
He insisted that the ministry was not seeking to discriminate against teacher trainees, insisting that he rather made it easier for them to do the service to cover the one-year probation, one-year induction.
Dr Prempeh explained that the trainees and the ministry reached an agreement where they would have to accept the posting from the NSS
Professional bodies
Justifying the licensure examination, Dr Prempeh enumerated various professions such as the lawyers, nurses and doctors which had their own regulatory bodies that decided what made someone a member.
He, therefore, stated that those who were teacher trainees could decide not to take up teaching as a profession and for that matter would not write the licensure examination, stressing that “as long as you want to be professional teacher, then you have to be assessed by the regulatory body, which is the National Teaching Council (NTC)”.
Source: Graphic Online
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Well spoken kofi...
This is age long requirement in the Public Universities. The Minister should not draw himself and for that matter the government into such a murky decisions. He should have allowed the Academicians to push for a full implementation of this requirement even through the VCs. Such major and general decisions that needed further explanations should not made by front line politicians. All sorts of misinterpretations and propaganda agenda are set by the opposition and clueless politicians. For political expediency we should always let the academicians to push for directives. NPP must be careful on how certain key decisions are communicated.
I like this. I am coming to ghana this December with my PhD so definitely, I will find a university to teach in Ghana. My PhD is from one of the top universities in the U.S. Thank you Napo
In developed Countries, UNDERGRADES students with a grade of "A" teach their peers,& those in master programme do the same in Universities. This guy who offered him this position? Which best college did he gets his certificates? Wisdom & Knowledge two separate things. GHANA, such minds not fit to lead a nation.
Is the Minister aware that some of our Universities are frustrating potential lecturers in attaining the desired goals? Students who performed well at the undergraduate level and came out with First Class Degree were selected by the AfD Bank to offered scholarships to further their education. The first ploy was the students did their National Service as Teaching Assistants by the time they completed their National Service, the scholarship has been given to others. This is a clear case of frustrating potential lecturers. This happened at the UEW Kumasi. Currently students who undertake accredited programs leading to the award in Masters in Technology are being frustrated by the University. NAPO SHINE YOU EYES IF YOU ARE REALLY SERIOUS WITH WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. TOO MUCH NEPOTISM IN OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.
NAPO knows next to nothing about our educational next system. That is why when it comes to such sensitive and critical positions you need expertise to head such positions.
book sense is not the same as home sense. NAPO or TAMPoon whatever your name is, i hope you know where to get your PHD holders to teach your double track mass graduates in 2020. lets just think before speaking
I disagree with NAPO on some of the thnigs he said. It is not necessary for a lecturer in the University to be a PhD holder. He studied in UK and practiced medicine in the UK so why is he making such comments. If you are in the medical faculties or similar faculties, it is understandable. For example in you are in engineering, you do not necessarily need a PhD otherwise you will just be an engineer pen pusher therefore irrelevant in the contemporary world. It is the same for finance. One does not necessarily need a PhD for that and those with ACCA, ICAEW, CIMA, ICA and so on are valued higher. For most of these courses, entering unto a PhD programme means you will be writing books, publisihing papers and consulting. Mind you the university is mainly for moulding an individual to create thnigs or to have a good pitch in the society and work place with does not necessarily mean tutoring from a PhD holder. A PhD holder should therefore be on hand to deliver to those enrolled on a masters programme. Alternatively they can be tutored by someone with double masters. Having said that I am in no way claiming that encouraging lecturers to have a Phd is bad but for it to be a requirement to teach in the university cannot be right. Also, the Finland example he gave is highly misleading. People use the Finnish example if it is convenient. Finland is a very diffrent place when it comes to education. They start school late and the children spend most of their time of the day in school. The teachers are everything to them so they do not take homework home. The governemtn subsidises their education heavily, more than any country in the world. The teachers are paid at the same level as bankers so they are able to attract the best brains into teaching. Their training, listen carefully, their training is very, very, very practical not theoretical. Many years of shadowing and mentoring so by the time a child of 7 years enter school for the first time the teachers role is a continuity of where the mother left off. So Napo is comparing apples to bananas. Now most of the village schools in Britain still have non teacher trained teachers up to today. Most of them started as dinner ladies, to teaching assistants before becoming teachers and they are some of the best teachers around. A university degree does not equate to good teaching. It takes passion and dedication, a nuturing quality. Graduate teacher training only means studying poolicies, procedures, reports and so on not delivering. We rather need those who can develop proper curriculum and deliver it practically.