Professional Development (PD) sessions are an important way to ensure effective implementation of the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) in Initial Teacher Education and the National Teacher Education Assessment Policy (NTEAP). In the past few years, five public universities have supported their affiliate colleges to build communities of practice through weekly professional development sessions that prepare subject tutors to plan and teach B.Ed. courses effectively.
T-TEL supported four universities during a 3-day workshop to write the Year 3 Semester 1 PD handbooks as part of the B.Ed. curriculum implementation in Ghana’s Colleges of Education. Tutors at various university-affiliated colleges of education will use these handbooks to improve teaching and learning. The hybrid workshop was held over Zoom and in-person at the Directorate of Colleges of Education Affiliation (DoCEA) of the University for Development Studies Tamale campus from July 12 to July 15, 2021.
In attendance were subject writing experts from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University for Development Studies, University of Ghana, University of Education, Winneba, and subject leads from the various college faculties. The manuals being developed include course handbooks for Language and Literacy, Pedagogy, Mathematics, Natural Science, French, Social Science, Physical Education, Music and Dance (PEMD), ICT and TVET.
Opening the workshop on behalf of the Director, Prof Owusu Sekyere, said, “we [UDS] are committed to ensuring that all participants feel comfortable writing these handbooks which would support the implementation of the B.Ed. in Initial Teacher Education”.
At the beginning of the workshop, university teams shared their experiences and lessons from monitoring PD implementation in the colleges over the last few months. The feedback presented was used in shaping the content and writing style of the handbooks.
Ms. Dinah Adiko, T-TEL’s key advisor for Gender Equality and Social Inclusion, facilitated a session to ensure that GESI-related issues were appropriately addressed during the writing sessions.
Closing the workshop, Dr Maxwell Nyatsikor of UDS thanked participants for exhibiting strong commitment towards the writing sessions and encouraged the teams to take necessary steps to ensure the successful completion of the handbooks.