Teacher training program launched in Ghana

With backing from the nation's government, Ghana will have 35,000 trained teachers make their way into its classrooms through the Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL) program.

Over the next four years, the initiative will transform Ghana's 38 colleges of education into T-TEL Centers of Excellence. Funding for the program is also coming from the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID).

“Ghana has made great strides in improving enrollment in primary schools," Acting Head of DFID Ghana Lynne Henderson said. "Having succeeded in getting children into school, we now need to ensure that those children receive quality education to best set them on the road to a prosperous future."

The quality of teachers in Ghana has not kept up with the nation's access to education. T-TEL will remedy that by partnering teachers with college tutors; improving coordination, research and policy between national educational institutions; supporting curriculum reform for teachers; and making sure student teachers are adequately trained before they are put into a classroom.

“This program is a recognition that for our nation to maintain its..competitiveness, the quality of teaching and learning must improve," Ghanaian Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur said. "Teachers are critical to the growth of nations. For our nation to prosper, teacher education must keep pace with the complexity of modern life."