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Over 300 teachers in some private schools within the Awutu Senya East Municipality have been given some training as a prerequisite to ensure that in the next three years, they can be legible to apply for a full-time teacher license.
The teachers who are part of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools, GNAPS were taken through some teacher professionalism courses to ensure that they are well positioned in the classroom.
Speaking to Citi News, head of Public Affairs for the National Teaching Council, Dennis Osei Owusu indicated that the move has been necessitated following the government’s directive of ensuring that the minimum qualification for teachers in the classroom is a degree.
“The law has made it clear that before a teacher enters a Ghanaian classroom to teach, he or she must be a trained teacher or must also possess a teacher’s license. We have seen that most of the private schools in Ghana don’t recruit teachers who are already professionals. In order not to disadvantage anybody, we believe that the best thing to do is to offer training to such teachers to teach for a period of three years and by that time they must have prepared themselves well to sit for the licensure exams,” Mr. Owusu told Citi News.
The Head of Public Affairs further urged teachers within the private school space who don’t have the requisite qualifications to endeavour to be part of the exercise to ensure that they win together.
“This is a great opportunity being offered to teachers within the private school space, and they must take advantage of it to better themselves if they want to remain in this profession.
Some Private school teachers who were taken through the five-day training shared with Citi News their excitement after the exercise and how it is going to impact positively in the classroom.
Some school owners who were there with their teachers to take part in the exercise called on government to reduce the taxes on private schools to allow them to operate freely.
“As private schools, the taxes are just too much for us. We have more than eight taxes we pay to government and so at the end of the day, you realize that we are just working to pay taxes. We want everything to be embodied,” Proprietress of Streams in the Desert School complex and Municipal Chairperson of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools Municipal B, Mary Gifty Nyatsikah told Citi News.
She lamented the struggles the private schools go through in ensuring sustainability and urged government to consider supporting private schools with funds since they play a key role in ensuring that education is brought to the doorstep of the citizenry.
According to her, the training has come at a critical time when private school teachers need to upgrade to leverage all teaching methods.
Nicholas Wachoba chairman of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools Municipal A said the prices of the registration for the Basic Education Certificate Examination are a bit too high and wants government to consider reducing the prices since parents are already overburdened.
“My concern is basically with the registration of the BECE registration which has been pegged at 170 cedis and this is a bit too high looking at the already huge financial burden private school parents are faced with and we want the government to do something about it,” Nicholas Wachoba chairman of Municipal A said.
Some teachers who had the opportunity to be schooled said the opportunity given them will give them the platform to move higher in their profession by further attaining a teacher’s license in the coming years.
source:citinewsroom.com