The Director, Pre-Tertiary Directorate at the Ministry of Education, Mrs. Catherine Appiah-Pinkrah has described the Teaching with Impact programme as one that will support the Ministry of Education’s efforts at ensuring that teachers are highly skilled to promote active teaching and learning in schools.
She said this at the virtual launch of the teaching with impact programme which aimed at giving teachers hands-on teaching skills to enable them to impact positively on the results and pass rates of pupils.
The innovative teaching programme was launched by the Savana Signatures, an NGO with offices in Tamale and Ho and its partner Edukans, an International NGO.
In an address, Mrs. Appiah-Pinkrah said the emphasis of Ghana’s education reforms includes the improvement of the quality of education at all levels.
Because of that, she cited the development of a new curriculum and assessment framework to reform basic education, revised curricula of Junior High Schools to senior High Schools, Pre-Teacher professional Development and management (PTPDM) policy and the upgrade of the curriculum of Colleges of Education to a four-year Bachelor of Education degree programmes, as some restructurings that were undertaken.
She indicated that “Effective teachers do many things such as planning and preparation, setting instructional outcomes, establishing a culture of learning, simulating dialogue of questioning and answering, giving feedback, communicating with colleagues and families. These essential elements are incorporated in Teaching with Impact training.”
The Teaching with Impact Programme involves the use of Correckbooks to stimulate teaching and learning in classrooms.
It also uses video recordings of teaching processes and methodologies among schools in Ghana and the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, it is set to be implemented in the Northern, North East and Volta regions in 80 schools with 32,254 basic schools’ children, 875 teachers and 320 teacher training lecturers benefiting from the programme.
While expressing the Ministry’s delight with the launch of the programme, Mrs. Appiah Pinkrah urged the two organisations to roll in teachers for inclusive and special education unto the programme.
For his part, Mark Hoeksma, Programme Development Management, Basic Education at Edukans, said the ‘Teaching with Impact’ would give teachers the knowledge to become more effective, improve pupils and schools output, increase numeracy and literacy activities in the classroom and empower children with 21st-century development skills.
The Director of Savana Signatures, Mr. Stephen Agbenyo, also said the cardinal principle of his organisatisation is to provide tools that enable young people, communities and particularly the vulnerable to improve on themselves and become useful to society, adding that Teaching with Impact is one of those tools that would teachers and pupils interact more effectively.
Juliet Etefe