COLLEGES OF EDUCATION TO GET 20 COMPUTERS (PAGE 11, JUNE 16, 2010)

THE government is to provide each of the 38 Colleges of Education across the country with 20 sets of flat screen computers and air conditioners for their information and communications technology (ICT) centres.
The facilities are to enhance teaching and learning of ICT and boost the capacity of the colleges to provide quality training to the students.
The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, who disclosed this, also said “as part of the government’s policy to complete all ongoing projects in all the Colleges of Education, the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) had allocated large sums of money to all the institutions”.
He was speaking at the second congregation ceremony of the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) College of Education at Effiduase, Koforidua during which 294 students, who completed in 2008, graduated.
“The government is committed to producing qualified teachers to ensure quality education at the basic level of the country’s educational structure to enable the nation to have a solid foundation on which higher levels of education can be built”, Mr Tettey-Enyo stated
The Education Minister said since the nation’s most important resource was its people and not its gold, cocoa nor its oil, the government would continue to provide the Colleges of Education with the needed logistics to enable them to render quality training to teacher trainees.
“Since it is the people who build the nation and are capable of making it strong and great, we have to concentrate on eradicating illiteracy and provide opportunities for all our people to be educated”.
To achieve this literacy rate among the population, Mr Tettey-Enyo emphasised the important role teachers played in the human resource development of the country, adding that “the government’s attention is focused on the training, deployment and motivation of teachers”
On the elevation of Colleges of Education to tertiary status, he said in consonance with the National Accreditation Board (NAB) regulations, all the 38 institutions which were given three years of institutional accreditation to run the Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) programme would undergo a re-accreditation exercise this year.
“Since education is the foundation for the growth of the society which also develops on knowledge and skills acquired through teaching and learning, the elevation of colleges to tertiary status will enable the nation to move away from the old ways of doing things to accelerate human development of Ghana”, he stated.
For his part, the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, lamented the increasing level of indiscipline among the youth in the country and, therefore, advised the newly trained teachers to help reverse the trend in the communities they would be posted to.
“As young teachers who are coming out, you must see yourselves as generational thinkers and be agents of change in society so that together we can do away with the upsurge of indiscipline to make Ghana a better dwelling place for all,” he stated.
In his welcome address, the Principal of the college, Mr A. Akumfi-Ameyaw, mentioned the lack of fence and accommodation for staff of the colleges as some of the challenges undermining effective teaching and learning.
He, therefore, appealed to the government to help address the problems “to protect us from armed robbers and other intruders as well as enhance teaching and learning”.