UEW teacher education programme approved – GNACOPS

The teacher education programme for unqualified private school teachers to be taught by the University of Education (UEW) has been approved by stakeholders in the education sector, the Ghana National Council of Private Schools said.

Giving an update on the education course slated to commence in 2023, the National Executive Director of GNACOPS, Enoch Kwasi Gyetuah told AcademicWeek that the academic calendar for the programme is currently being worked on.

“The UEW programme has been developed, approval has been received from all necessary authorities. We are only working on an academic calendar that would help us achieve the implementation of both face-to-face and online hybrid systems,” he stated.

The course approval comes after the Private Schools Council called on the Ministry of Education to back the soon-to-be-rolled out UEW teacher education programme aimed to train unlicensed private school teachers in the country.

Obengfo Kwasi Gyetuah in an interview monitored by AcademicWeek said the Ministry in charge of Education (MoE) supporting the University of Education (UEW) education course would mean it’s approved by the government.

“GNACOPS and the University of Education need the Education Ministry backing to create an atmosphere and a programme that has been supported by the government to train the unlicensed private school teachers,” he stated.

The GNACOPS Executive Director as part of the support also urged the central government to subsidize the tuition fees to be paid by the unprofessional teachers in private schools for the impending teacher education programme.

He said his outfit has liaised with the management of the University of Education (UEW) to run a trimester teacher education course for some 200,000 untrained private school teachers in the country for the next academic year.

Mr Gyetuah indicated that volunteer trainees ready to participate in the forthcoming teacher education programme have submitted their documents and other information to help ease the process of admissions next academic year.

Asked if there would be any punishment for private school proprietors that employ unlicensed teachers after the education course, the Director said they could face a jail term, not less than 6 months or not more than 12 months in addition to a fine or penalty.