The history of any democratic-driven election presents citizens with options to choose from based on their manifestos.
One of the independent candidates contesting this year’s presidential slot, Marricke Kofi Gane, since announcing his presence on Ghana’s political scene has been doing a lot of work. Recently, he launched his manifesto and it entails a comprehensive policy on education.
Read full details from Gane4Ghana Camp.
MARRICKE KOFI GANE’S EDUCATIONAL POLICY: THE WEAPON OF MASS ELEVATION
PART 1- WHAT TEACHERS STAND TO GAIN
In a world where countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow, the future belongs to the nation that best educates its people. Period.
The above wise words were spoken by the immediate former president of the United States of America, Barrack Hussein Obama, on July 24, 2009 – just few months after assuming office.
The need for quality education cannot be overemphasised and quality education is what Mr. Marricke Kofi Gane and his Gane4Ghana agenda propose to offer Ghanaians. In this part, we shall look at the educational vision proposed in the Gane4Ghana manifesto which is known as the Ghanaian Agenda from the teachers’ perspective.
It goes without saying that any keen observers of education worth their salt agrees that the bedrock of any educational policy is the teacher hence in the Ghanaian Agenda (the Gane4Ghana manifesto) teacher training and development is one of the topmost priorities on the agenda. The Gane Government (TGG) states emphatically that:
The quality of teaching human resource is the bloodline of our educational systems – teaching must no more be a career path of last resort.
To this end, the Ghanaian Agenda proposes to institute an online Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for teachers in which they would be mandated to participate in at least once every year. The Gane Government also intends to use the CPD as a platform for peer-to-peer learning which would afford our teachers to interact and share their experiences with and learn from their international colleagues with whom Government of Ghana (GoG) have established Educational Partnerships.
The Ghanaian Agenda also seeks to improve the numbers and qualities of School Management and School Inspectorate human resources purposely to improve and maintain the standards of education across the board. This would be done by awarding scholarships annually to 100 teachers adjudged as the best to pursue courses in Educational Management and Supervision both locally or internationally.
To strengthen the quality of human resource, the Gane Government intends to make it mandatory for management to undertake quality assurance which would encompass school self-evaluation, external evaluation including peer-student-parent inputs at each level of the educational ladder.
Underpinning the educational philosophy of TGG is a science-biased pedagogy entailing the use of Science, Technology, Engineering Mathematics and Arts (STEMA) in teaching. This would require an extensive re-training and,or, tooling regime of teachers from the Basic through the Second cycles as part of a compulsory component of the Continuous Professional Development. The aim is to use STEMA and Problem-based approach to teaching all subjects with the ultimate aim of improving general inquisitiveness and problem solving orientation of students at all levels of the educational ladder.
The above are some of the innovative ways the Gane4Ghana Agenda intends to transform the educational landscape of teachers. In part two, the Gane Educational Policy proper would be addressed.
Source: rymcitigh.com
