A total of four hundred and sixty (460) First Year Teacher Trainees in the 46 colleges of Education in the country have been dismissed.
The Students were rusticated over poor academic performances by the University of Cape Coast which is the affiliating University of the colleges.
The affected students are the first batch of Trainees admitted in the 2018/2019 academic year pursuing the four years Bachelor of Education Program.
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The B.Ed programme is the cumulative work undertaken by Ghanaian educators under the Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL), a six-year (2014-2020) government of Ghana programme, funded by UK aid, and is intended to transform the delivery of pre-service teacher education.
The new Policy requires that all basic school teachers would have to study and attain a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree aligned to the NTECF to be delivered by the 46 Public Colleges of Education in Ghana through their affiliate public universities.
The affected students were sacked for trailing a total of 15 credit hours subjects in their first year. There is widespread depression among affected students with some attempted suicide while others were unable to return home for fear of being stigmatized.
The affected students are accusing National Conference of Principals of Teacher Training Colleges (PRINCOF) and Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana (TTAG) for being indolent about their plight given that the First Year of their course was riddled with challenges.
According to the affected students, the over a month strike by Teachers of Colleges of Education piled pressure on them to complete a sixteen-week curriculum in twelve weeks and as a result, most topics were not treated.
Again, they claim the semester recorded incident of course outline variation among the 46 colleges of education creating academic confusion.
Apart from these the students also claim the First Semester of the First year was affected by “Inadequate Teaching and Learning Materials.TLMs to be used in the course of study were not enough and in some instances were not even in existence. Also, Handouts to guide trainees in their course of study delayed in its provision and in most cases were not up to dateâ€.
When contacted TTAG said it will speak on the development at the right time.
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Source: Starr online