UEW-IERIS to Rollout Professional Development Courses for Teachers
The Institute for Educational Research and Innovation Studies (IERIS), University of Education, Winneba (UEW), has registered with the National Teaching Council (NTC) to roll out continuing professional development courses for basic and secondary school teachers in Ghana.
The courses, which include Administration and Management, Educational Psychology, Sociology of Education, and Educational Management Information System among others, had been designed to enhance teachers’ capacity and promote professionalism in teaching.
The Director of IERIS, Prof. Ephraim Avea Nsoh, disclosed this at a day’s orientation on the rudiments of the NTC “Continuous Professional Development” framework, for staff at IERIS to provide quality and standard training to the teachers.
“We are a research institute so we do research but alongside the research, we also do training at various levels. So, we decided that it’s better to look at an already existing template or system with which we could start developing modules and training as part of our quest to do short courses and programmes.
“We realised that NTC has provided that kind of space where we can train teachers and help them grow professionally and so, we've had to register as a service provider with them to train teachers on various course areas,” he affirmed.
Prof. Avea Nsoh urged all basic and secondary school teachers to enrol on the programme to build their competence to handle students, teach them well as well as manage their schools and district properly. He added that the course would enable them to be certificated or licensed.
A senior research fellow at IERIS, Mr. Cosmos Dzikunu, on his part, assured the development of the modules to kick start the annual short courses as soon as possible. He further assured prospective applicants of the requisite expertise to run the training.
“We have a lot to offer and we think that IERIS coming in as a service provider is something that will actually help to build the capacity of teachers nationwide. The training is targeted at all levels of teaching, right from the basic to the senior high school,” he stated.
Mr. Dzikunu hinted at plans to roll out other programmes in PhD, MPhil and M.Ed.
The Director of Research at NTC, Mr. Bernard Kuug, explained that his outfit is mandated to promote the professional development of teachers through the formulation of the framework to guide the development of capacity-building programmes.
“So, what we have done is that we have outsourced that aspect of the development of workshops and then training programmes to service providers. IERIS happens to be one of the service providers so it has registered with us,” he said.
