EI’s largest national affiliate in Ghana, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), has organised a workshop from 19-23 February in Accra in partnership with the Pan African Teachers’ Centre (PATC) and the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF). At the event, teachers were urged to adopt a positive attitude towards reading in order to have a positive impact on the knowledge of students.
The theme of the workshop was School Development to Enhance the Provision of Quality Education in disadvantaged Communities.
Participants focused on:
- improving the classroom teachers’ capacity, knowledge, and skills to facilitate reading for pleasure, comprehension, language development, and effective communication;
- learning mathematics based on concrete examples;
- using appropriate GNAT/PATC/CTF books and relevant teaching and learning materials to stimulate and sustain learners’ interest, and increase their understanding of subjects or concepts, in the context of the Ghana Education Curricula;
- the collaboration among teachers, parents, local communities, and governmental officials to develop and improve school infrastructure, and provide adequate education resources; and
- developing individual and school action plans, and reviewing and updating school profiles.
GNAT General Secretary, and EI Vice-President, Irene Duncan-Adanusa spoke about an initiative that targeted kindergarten and primary teachers in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, and Volta regions.
Quality teachers for disadvantaged communities
The teachers, coming from disadvantaged communities in these three regions, were equipped with skills necessary to develop students’ literacy and numeracy skills.
“Teachers played a critical role in the transformation of the educational system and there is the need for them to show professionalism in their duties to improve the country’s education system,” Duncan-Adanusa said.
She asked the teachers to share their experiences with their colleagues in order to enhance national development.
Educators develop skills to better fight illiteracy
Thomas Baafi, Course Director for the workshop, said the participants were trained in areas such as phonemic awareness, oral skills, phonics, connection between sound and letters, vocabulary, smooth and fluent use of language, and understanding of readings.
He also called on teachers to make mathematics attractive and help erase the notion that this subject is a difficult one.
“An important aspect of the right to education is literacy and basic education,” said PATC representative Peter Mabande. “To be literate is a pre-requisite for participation in today's world. Literacy makes it easier for individuals to fulfil their obligations as citizens in a democratic society and to fight for and demand their rights.”
Literacy crucial for democracy and sound society
He went on to say that a high literacy rate is a pre-requisite for democratic development and economic growth in each society. It is also of great importance for the empowerment of women in society.
Mabande also underlined that governments must increase their investment in education in order to guarantee free quality public education to all and to eradicate illiteracy. This investment must be directed towards both basic education and adult education.
“All teachers need to have training in a variety of methods for teaching literacy,” he emphasised. “Teachers who work with language education must be given high quality and in-depth initial teacher education as well as continuous training to upgrade their skills relating to the teaching of reading, writing, viewing, speaking and listening and to receive information about developments in this area.”
On 26-27 February, a visit to two disadvantaged rural primary schools in the Volta Region to see how Nkabom Project Schools were progressing in terms of constructing classrooms for kindergarten classes and using books donated by the GNAT/PATC/CTF Book Development Programme showed that much success had been achieved.