UCC bears teeth - the plight of teacher trainees

Teacher trainees have been sacked for non-performance in either one or more papers. This is due to a review of progression policy by the Institute of Education, University of Cape Coast.

This means that if a student writes 10 papers and gets 9As but failed one twice, he will go home irrespective of his CGPA. Hmmmm this is not a helping situation since a student with poor financial stability and without allowance struggles to pay school fees before being given even bed in college to sleep on, suffers this harsh and unfavorable policy.

They may claim that they want good teachers, but I want to say that some of the great teachers that we have now might not have been where they are if a policy of this caliber was initiated. Students can go home for nonperformance but not in the case of “one paper trailing”.

Instead of this policy, the institute should take a critical look at the curriculum. "Ten courses in one semester coupled with unfavourable co-curricular activities in the colleges of education".

More to the point, the credibility of the results being released by the institute is a bone of contention. i.e a student failed mathematics (statistics) but called for remark, and passed with B+.

Results were released from institute of education but were swallowed back because they claimed there was a problem where those who passed at first release, now failed. Eiii God! Students' lives are just being tossed like netball in this country.

One would want to ask whether the institute is the only teacher training institution in Ghana.

Does that mean other teacher training universities are not producing quality teachers? Hmmm! Food for thought, isn’t it? There is the need for parents and other stakeholders to rise and find solution to this hell of a policy.

Teachers can be trained in subject areas. This will remove the entangled bottle- necks since everyone has his favourite area of specialization. If we want quality education, we have to spend on it.

Go to some colleges and you will witness the existence of no laboratories yet they offer courses which involve practical. They should define poor performance to the whole world and see whether they will not laugh at Ghana.

We train engineers who cannot start even an engine due to the theoretical nature of Ghana's educational system. We allow politics to infiltrate the educational system then we now say trainees are sacked for nonperformance.

Policy makers should not only consider throwing stone into market, but also whom it will hit and how it will destroy.

I rest my case.

D.B.K Praisebright