Our History

Here, you will find information about our transition from a bilateral aid project to a Ghanaian not-for-profit organization

2014

Transforming Teacher Education & Learning programme established as a Government of Ghana pre-service teacher training programme funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and implemented by Cambridge Education.

2018

T-TEL’s remit extended to focus on comprehensive teacher education policy reform led by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC).

2019

T-TEL programme team explores options with the Ministry of Education to keep its work going after the FCDO programme ends.

2020

On 7th July 2020, T-TEL was established as a Ghanaian, not-for-profit organisation to provide high quality technical advice, project management, research, and implementation support services, using local talent and expertise to enable Ghana’s education system to reach greater heights.

2021

T-TEL becomes fully operational in February 2021 and commences  its first three projects: T-SHEL in Partnership with Mastercard Foundation, DeliverEd in partnership with University of Oxford and COVID-19 Impact Assessment Study in partnership with EdTechHub.

Transforming Teaching, Education & Learning (T-TEL) was established as an independent Ghanaian not-for-profit organisation on 7th July 2020

T-TEL was established after the successful completion of Transforming Teacher Education and Learning, a six-year $34 million Government of Ghana pre-service teacher training programme funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and implemented by Cambridge Education from 2014 to 2020.

Transforming Teacher Education & Learning was a national teacher education reform programme owned by the Ministry of Education and led by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC). Its work centred on the introduction of a Bachelor in Education (B.Ed.) degree in Initial Teacher Education in all 46 public Colleges of Education (CoEs) affiliated to 5 public universities. Transforming Teacher Education and Learning was seen by key stakeholders including FCDO and the Ministry of Education as a very successful programme which brought about significant changes in Ghana’s teacher education system. 

"Feedback for T-TEL’s work has been consistently positive through this review process and the programme represents a very strong example of how technical assistance can support national scale reforms and implementation across the education system"

The Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI)’s country report on UK aid to Ghana, published in February 2020, found that T-TEL’s work on teacher training was the UK Government funded intervention in Ghana judged ‘most likely to be sustained’ due to its strong performance on institutional strengthening and “strong signals that practice in Colleges of Education has changed.” 

With this credible platform established the programme team with the guidance of the then Minister of Education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh and key educationists, explored options to keep this work going after the FCDO programme ended. Through discussions with the Ministry of Education and international donor agencies the organisation’s founders identified the need for a competent, highly skilled Ghanaian Technical Assistance provider to assist the education system to articulate and achieve its policy goals. It was agreed that T-TEL was positioned to fill this gap within the Ghanaian education sector.

The Mastercard Foundation agreed to explore the potential for future partnership and with this encouragement a group of 15 subscribers came together to develop T-TEL’s constitution, vision, mission and guiding principles.  These subscribers all have a strong commitment to improving the quality and relevance of learning outcomes across Ghana’s education system. Their commitment and dedication ensured that T-TEL was formally registered in July 2020.

Currently most large-scale TA programmes in Ghana involve international organisations who, whilst most of their employees may be Ghanaian, have leadership structures and processes based outside of the country. The aspiration to provide genuinely Ghanaian competition for these international organisations, using contextual expertise, understanding and rootedness to provide high quality services which deliver results and represent value for money is the driving force behind T-TEL.