'Ten colleges of education is a step in the wrong direction'

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The Forum for Education Reform (FFER) is calling on government to channel its resources to expanding infrastructure at the existing thirty-eight colleges of education in the country rather than forging ahead with its plans to establishing an additional ten.

According to the Forum, government’s decision to establish another ten colleges of education is a step in the wrong direction.

Speaking on Accra-based Joy FM, Retired Diplomat and Educationist, and member of the Forum, Dr K. B Asante explained that the Forum was not against government’s interventions in the educational system, but if government goes ahead to inject funds into the project, it would result in the dissipation of funds into “unnecessary areas”.

Members of the forum include Sir Sam Jonah; Chairman, Jonah Mining, Prof. Stephen Adei; former Rector of GIMPA, Prof. Seth Buatsi; formerly of University of Ghana; Mr. Kenneth Quartey, a businessman; Ms. Adelaide Ahwireng, Managing Director of Fio Enterprises and Mr. Franklin Cudjoe; Founding President and CEO, IMANI.

The rest are Mr. Kofi Bentil Vice president, IMANI; Dr. Patrick Awuah, President, Ashesi University; Mr. Israel Titi-Ofei Principal, SOS-Hermann Gmeiner, Dr. Tony Oteng-Gyasi, Managing Director, Tropical Cable Ltd;Prof. Addae Mensah former Vice Chancellor, University of Ghana; Prof. J. S. Djangmah, Former Director-General, Ghana Education Service; Dr. Lydia Apori Nkansah Lecturer, KNUST Law School and Dr. K.B. Asante, retired diplomat and educationist.

Government’s decision to build more colleges of education is to increase the intake of students who apply to the colleges but are denied access due to limited facilities, as well as roll out a new programme which will focus on early childhood development.

Disagreeing with government, “the forum believes that instead of building the ten additional colleges of education, it would be appropriate if government can do it much more cost effectively by expanding existing ones and not building new ones and secondly, do it with qualitative improvement,” Prof. Stephen Adei said.

 Splendid idea but…

Prof. Stephen Adei, while congratulating government for making such a consideration by focusing on teacher education believes that “the method is not the best”.

In his opinion, funds should rather be channeled to making quality, education at the colleges of education.

“The idea of focusing on teacher education is splendid. What we are saying is that the method is not the
best,” he said.

“First of all, we have 38 colleges already. Of the 38, the average intake is 400 which can easily be expanded to take 800. That is, you can double the teacher training immediately without any infrastructure administrative overhead and so the government can go ahead and do it in a much more cost effective way,” he explained.

The forum also raised concerns about the distribution of infrastructure and opportunities for students in public institutions compared to those in private schools.

They recalled days when a child from a deprived town could climb the ladder and enter one of the best secondary schools and eventually get admission to the university.

Prof. J. S. Djangmah, a former Director-General at the Ghana Education Service decried the poor quality of education being offered at the public schools and called for an improvement at that level by employing teachers with post graduate certificates.

“The public school child is probably getting the worse of education and it should be something we should be ashamed of,” he noted.

K. B. Asante also opined that although teacher education was very important, there was the need for teachers to be knowledgeable in their areas of specialization.

 Govt is on the right course

While commending the Forum for showing interest in the educational interventions being made by government, Deputy Minister for Education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa argued that government was on the right course in improving infrastructure at the tertiary level by establishing the additional 10 colleges of education.

According to him, the new colleges would focus on special needs which have been neglected by the already existing 38 colleges of education.

“The proposals are not mutually exclusive, we can still expand access as we are doing now… but the new ten colleges are going to focus on an area which is neglected, that is early childhood development of our children,” he said.

Asked whether the “specialty” could not be created in the existing colleges, Mr Ablakwa noted that the necessity had arisen due to the deficit of teachers which he estimated at about 60,000.


He added that government would be rolling out a programme under the watch of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to improving infrastructure at the various existing colleges of education.

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