More respect for teachers. Higher pay, fewer classes, and less classroom time, with this extra time being used for training and curriculum development. Discipline should come in the form of training with temporarily reduced class loads. Even teachers don't have the audacity to cane pupils when they go wayward in school. We have thought it twice that Ghana Education Service new policy that spare caning pupils has also brought indiscipline and disrespect in schools. Our research tell us that most pupils are fearless and careless now.
Also, parents must halt insults on teachers because some of them just spark and voice out filthy words on teachers when their children send report about punishment given by teachers during school hours. They even insult teachers before their children and it has totally reduced the high value from pupils towards teachers now. But considering the past when you see a teacher with luggage no one will signal you to help him/her base on the respect. Therefore, parents must cease such act and it would help to inculcate discipline in pupils and teachers may regain high value.
Treat teachers differently.
They are responsible for each new generation of learners and should be regarded as some of the most influential individuals in the country. Teaching should be considered a top level profession with higher salaries. Teachers would quickly teach to inspire and so students can learn versus just to retain their job by passing termly and yearly tests.
With due respect, Educate Ghana Summit urges His Excellency President Nana Addo to make teachers valuable by giving them good condition of services, because without teachers education wouldn't have be in existence to produce vibrant leaders like himself. To add more, among the public sector workers teachers are the most sufferers because their salaries are below sufficient also their monetary issues are always in the public domain. When there's increments for teachers the whole world will get to know it. Due to this most students don't even target to become teachers.
Government must introduce Paperless In Ghana Education Service to reduce distress on teachers.
Mr Boadi William has petitioned Nana Addo the President of Ghana that, he should consider his mission to improve quality education, fight corruption in the country and bring paperless in Ghana Education Service.
Moreover, the President's mission of dealing with corruption in the country could be achieved when he introduce paperless in Ghana Education Service. Usually, Teachers suffer before their documents are processed. Sometimes they even pay money to officers in charge to fast track processes. This could help to check ghost names and prevent delays in salary payment as a newly trained teacher and upgrading, postings, promotions, transfers grants etc.
Nevertheless, I would like to alert the government and minister of education about teachers transfer grant. It was aired on television and radio during the past vacation that government have released teachers transfer grant but as it stands now most districts account officers are still keeping the money just to mafia the beneficiaries and to sabotage the government in some way.
In addition, Educate Ghana Summit has tumb up to the Free S.H.S policy but if the secretariat loose focus paper work could provide duplicate numbers in enrollment submissions to let government pay fees in someone's pocket.
Raise the standards for becoming an educator.
Again government must increase teachers salaries and give them huge incentives including research allowance.
Government should provide free accommodation for teachers at the rural areas.
Mr. Boadi William has beseeched government to quickly provide free accommodation for teachers at the rural areas to boost their moral in the teaching job.
He said when government is able to provide free accommodation for those teaching at the rural areas, it would tune their conditions into a comfortable stay, he emphasized.
He revealed that most of the teachers at the rural areas always suffer before getting a comfortable room to rent when posted to those areas. Besides, their salary also delay in the pipeline for too long and eventually they buy motor bike with part of the scanty salary to enable them go to their miles school compound.
Some even get married by force due to discomfort and delay in payment of salary to assembly men and a breadwinner.
Teachers will need more training in order to adapt to the way of Mathematics and Integrated Science instruction that is the Common Core Standards and the National Teaching Council suggest. The old way of teaching formulas and procedures is only a portion of the picture. Students understand the use of these formulas and procedures (and remember them) when they can derive the formulas themselves in interesting activities done with manipulatives and visuals to make mathematics real and real life. Then, students need to utilize these traditional formulas and procedures solving real life problems and have whole class discussions about their findings. This makes mathematics a field of problem solving, which it truly is, rather than just a field of disparate numbers. The legacy will be a generation of adults who can utilize mathematics seamlessly to solve real life problems, instead of generations of adults who state, “I never really understood mathematics,” as we have now. Teachers need time to get the professional development to teach these new standards and to create lessons that are targeted and relevant for their students.
Continuous Education for Teachers.
Provide annual seminars/workshops/classes for teachers. In order to stay competitive with the world, our teachers, the backbone of the education system, need to be continuously growing and learning new skills and ways to effectively teach our youth.
Update and improve teaching curriculums yearly.
Use a forum setting among teachers that teach the same subjects across several school districts. Allow teacher to learn from each other. This could include yearly retreats to learn from and network with each other. No single teacher following a set strict level of rules from a book will ever become the best teacher. You need multiple teachers coming together iteratively to achieve the best level of teaching and improving upon it each year.
Providing Personalized Learning Opportunities
More personalized learning for students.
Move away from standardization and uniformity of learning focused on a one-size-fits-all system that is excessively focused on bachelor degrees for all as a measure of success and achievement. In its place, the system should develop and promote career and technical education at grades 6-10, offering greater choice, including graduation at sixteen for students pursuing associate degrees and trade certificates.
Teachers need to work one-on-one with students to see if proficiency is achieved and re-teach if necessary. Reduce class size to make this a possibility.
Learning needs to be individualized both in pace and format. But due to their psychology are not ok with
The Importance of Basic Skill Development.
Stay the course with the Common Core Standards. Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions out there about the Common Core Standards. These standards focus on critical thinking skills and learning all of the traditional curriculum (and more) in a manner that allows students to solve real life problems. This is critical for Ghana workers to stay competitive in a global workforce. We have barely begun the process in this country, and a misinformation campaign is forcing some states to rethink whether they will use the Common Core Standards or not. This is a mistake. Also, there is a view that the Common Core Standards and high stakes testing are intertwined. The high stakes testing was a part of the previous standards and No Child Left Behind legislation. This does not have to be the case if teachers and parents raise their voices against high stakes testing.
HOW STUDENTS CAN PERFORM.
Students in Ghana are not pushed to learn. Most parents don't have to supervise their own children to study at home. We have to make education interesting again or things will just get worse.
Make schools more progressive environments. Allow 4 day school weeks, increase or decrease the lengths of days, allow students to teach, allow students to rate teachers so that it enforces teachers to care and have to try.
Ward Reduce the distorting role of sports in school life, which engenders misplaced priorities for too many people.
completely digital and let the students investigate a lot more. Most of the world’s info is online and we don’t need professors simply repeating it.
As teachers and schools have begun to retool to teach the Common Core Standards, there needs to be a moratorium on strong sanctions against schools that get poor scores in some areas in the next few years. Teachers and students need time to adapt to the new standards.
Career Exposure. Students need access to the careers that are available in today’s economy. It could be a class, a seminar, a work study, etc… but the point would be to familiarize students with real world careers and jobs that could be available to them someday. This would help student be more focused on what career or field of work they would like to pursue when they reach college, saving them time and money.
Restructure a school finance system that’s based on local property taxes. It’s deeply regressive and, again, out of touch with the rest of the world.
Teaching Styles Must Change.
More thinking/analyzing and less memorizing. Innovation and creativity are based on understanding things, not on something memorized.
Teachers lesson plan must be a printed documents accordingly to reduce distress on teachers and to prevent faulty lesson plans. It may help teachers not to teach outside the core points and the subject matter as well.
Have a practical skills program in addition to an academic program. I understand that this approach is successful in Finland. An academic education is not appropriate for everyone.
Timing Critical Thinking and Problem Solving. Focus on teaching students how use and apply their minds to tasks or problems. These are skills that are usable in any career field.
Teachers then need to move from passive (in terms of the student learner) to facilitators for student learning.
Math/science relevant. Example: for the football players, a wide receiver lines up 15 yards left and he catches the ball 20 yards down field. How far did the quarterback throw the ball? The Pythagorean theorem (and just about every bit of math) can be applied to common real life scenarios. Not only does a real example make the topic more tangible, it also makes the topic more interesting.
How students are evaluated.
More demanding ways to show you know something. Exams based on memory don’t cut it, but on the other hand, evaluation systems need to be a lot more demanding to find out what the student really knows. There has to be objective rubrics that allow for universal, international proof that a student really knows his stuff.
Reduce The High Stakes Exams
Reduce some or most of the high stakes testing that sucks time and creativity from students who need it most starting in 3rd grade. Weeks and weeks are lost to teaching to the tests and then taking the tests. The best performing countries (one example is Finland) do not spend time and money on such testing.
Decrease the emphasis on standardized testing as a measure of rigor and accountability, and replace that with support for a child’s whole education, including social-emotional needs. Included in this is devoting funding and resources to providing social supports to students and families in terms of nutrition, health care, child care, counseling, supervision, etc.
The Role of Post-Secondary Education
Make post-secondary education more affordable so that student loan debt does not limit students and graduates.
Cocobod scholarships for service to the country more lucrative. If 18 year olds spend a few years giving back (e.g., in the Armed Forces) while their minds mature and earn all or most of their tuition, room and board, they will be able to afford college and possibly be in much better position to make the most of their educational opportunity.
Treat college like an option instead of the ultimate goal. Real world programs like internships, apprenticeships, and even gap years are effective in preparing students for life after school and don’t leave you with a mound of debt.
Our Culture
The country has an attitude problem. There is a stigma that math (and school in general) is boring. When I was young, my family would do math problems at the table and turn it into a game. As a result, I was ahead of the curve in all of my math classes (Sure, there may be an argument made that I had a natural disposition to math, but I believe that nurturing a skill at early age can help the brain develop to support that skill in the future). As a young student, despite my parents’ efforts, I did not read as much as I should have. As a result, my vocabulary, albeit not bad, is worse than I would like it to be.
Aside these, we must take our culture very serious and study it vividly in addition to whatever we learn. That could contribute to inculcate discipline in pupils.
Education Directorates.
Education Directors must respect teachers because they are the masters in classroom and without their presence too directors are good for nothing. Who teaches students to pass their exams ? ...Teachers. At times, directors frustrate teachers as if they are kids, please stop now.
Circuit supervisors must also established cordial relationship with teachers and forward their complains to the appropriate quarters when necessary. These would help teachers to work comfortably and do their best without divided attention.
Teachers Must Encourage Students
Professors, Lecturer, Tutors and teachers shouldn’t be the only ones allowed to sound off. Students have opinions too. After all, they’re the ones we are encouraging to do better — let’s learn what they need.
Do not discourage students. Do not assume incompetence or that they do not want to learn. It is important that every person is encouraged to learn. Give students some autonomy, which helps support longterm motivation. Be like have a suggestion box, which allows the students to ask questions anonymously related to any subject (obviously filter out inappropriate questions). Then every friday, or some other designated date, answer the questions in a fun way. Maybe bring in some snacks and make it a “fun” day. Engage students by telling stories, recite poems and using metaphors. It’s important that students stay engaged and doing so by providing them with funny/interesting stories helps maintain motivation.
To conclude, Educate Ghana Summit urged government, teachers, parents/guardians, stakeholders etc to fully support Ghana education and respect teachers because they are very important. Teachers are the pivot of quality education and they need motivation now.
Signed
Mr. Boadi William
CEO of Educate Ghana Summit.
For details 0541935106.
Mr. Robert Baidoo
PRO of Educate Ghana Summit.
For details 0548190035.
...we educate the nation.
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