34 Teachers trained under NGO programme deployed to VR

Public-private partnership (PPP) in education is the best way to fight poverty, disease and ignorance in the rural areas, the Second Lady, Mrs Matilda Amissah-Arthur has stated.  

She said the lack of adequate educational infrastructure and quality human resource in the rural areas accounted for the poor performance of the children and called for the trend to be reversed.

She made the observation at an event held at the Ashesi University last Monday, under the auspices of  Teach for Ghana (TFG), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in education, to officially deploy 34 teachers to the Volta Region. 

 Mrs Amissah-Arthur said the government was doing its best to invest in education but there was still a gap in the rural  areas. 

“I believe that the way to go is for the private sector and philanthropists to invest in the rural areas to make education accessible to all children in the country,” she said.

Collaboration is necessary

She called for an effective collaboration among traditional authorities, opinion leaders and other stakeholders in education to sustain the initiative.

“I see TFG as a partner to the government. They have to be supported in all aspects to motivate them deliver,” she said.

The co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of TFG, Mr Daniel Dotse, said plans were advanced for the NGO to foster closer collaboration with the GES to ensure that the initiative was sustained. 

“We are not going there to replace any teacher or to take over their work. We are going to support and ensure that more human resource is made available for teaching and learning,” he said.  

Timely initiative

For his part, the head of the Planning Unit and Director of Information Communication Technology (ICT) at the Volta Regional Directorate of the GES, Mr Bright Dey, said the decision to begin the TFG initiative in the Volta Region was timely.

He said the region had a yawning teacher-pupil gap that needed to be filled in order to improve on the performance of pupils in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), which currently stood at 42 per cent.

He promised that the GES directorate in the region would provide the 34 teachers with bicycles to facilitate their movement.

Mr Peter Watson, Project Manager of Varkey Foundation, an NGO which funds education, stressed that funding was key to a robust educational sector. 

“If you want to improve a country, there is no one to invest in than the teacher. Teachers are educators, innovators, planners and architects of national development,” he added.

Background

TFG, an initiative which began in 2012, aims at recruiting and retraining young graduates from the universities to teach in the rural areas in order to bridge the pupil-teacher gap.

At the beginning of this year, about 1,000 young graduates applied to be recruited for the maiden edition of the programme but only 34 of them were selected.

The 34 people are expected to assist trained class teachers for two years, within which the necessary collaboration and documentation process will be completed by the GES to certify them as trained teachers. 

Within the period, their remuneration would be borne by TFG with support from Varkey Foundation.