Study to Examine Belief and Role of Educators,

[Abdul Wahab]

One of the sectors which foster national development is education by ensuring the development of an operating human resource. The institution of strong educational structures contributes to a community populated by enlightened people, who are able to cause positive economic progress and social transformation. A Positive social transformation and its associated economic growth are achieved as individuals apply the skills they learned while they certainly were in school. The acquisition of these skills is facilitated by one individual most of us 'teacher' ;.Because of this, nations seeking economic and social development need not ignore teachers and their role in national development.

Teachers are the major factor that drives students' achievements in learning. The performance of teachers generally determines, not merely, the grade of education, but the general performance of the students they train. The teachers themselves therefore best primary school math tuition toa payoh ought to have the most effective of education, to allow them to subsequently help train students in the most effective of ways. It is famous, that the quality of teachers and quality teaching are some of the most important factors that shape the training and social and academic growth of students. Quality training will ensure, to a large extent, teachers are of quite high quality, in order to be able to properly manage classrooms and facilitate learning. That's why teacher quality is still a matter of concern, even, in countries where students consistently obtain high scores in international exams, such as Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Such countries, teacher education of prime importance because of the potential it has to cause positive students' achievements.

The structure of teacher education keeps changing in virtually all countries in a reaction to the quest of producing teachers who understand the present needs of students or just the demand for teachers. The changes are attempts to ensure quality teachers are produced and sometimes just to ensure that classrooms are not free from teachers. In the U.S.A, how to market top quality teachers has been a dilemma of contention and, for yesteryear decade approximately, has been motivated, basically, through the techniques prescribed by the No Child Left Behind Act (Accomplished California Teachers, 2015). Even in Japan and other Eastern countries where there are more teachers than needed, and structures have now been instituted to make certain good quality teachers are produced and employed, issues relating to the teacher and teaching quality continue to be of concern (Ogawa, Fujii & Ikuo, 2013). Teacher education is therefore no joke anywhere. This short article is in two parts. It first discusses Ghana's teacher education system and in the 2nd part looks at some determinants of quality teaching.

Ghana has been making deliberate attempts to produce quality teachers on her basic school classrooms. As Benneh (2006) indicated, Ghana's aim of teacher education is to supply an entire teacher education program through the provision of initial teacher training and in-service training programs, that'll produce competent teachers, who may help improve the effectiveness of the teaching and learning that continues in schools. The Initial teacher education program for Ghana's basic school teachers was offered in Colleges of Education (CoE) only, until quite recently when, University of Education, University of Cape Coast, Central University College and other tertiary institutions joined in. The absolute most striking difference involving the programs made available from another tertiary institution is that whilst the Universities teach, examine and award certificates for their students, the Colleges of Education offer tuition while the University of Cape Coast, through the Institute of Education, examines and award certificates. Working out programs made available from these institutions are attempts at providing many qualified teachers to show in the schools. The National Accreditation Board accredits teacher training programs in order to ensure quality.

The National Accreditation Board accredits teacher education programs based on the structure and content of the courses proposed by the institution. Hence, the courses run by various institutions differ in content and structure. As an example, the course content for the Institute of Education, University of Cape Coast is slightly different from the course structure and content of the Center for Continue Education, University of Cape Coast and none of both of these programs matches that of the CoEs, though they all award Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) after four years of training. The DBE and the Four-year Untrained Teacher's Diploma in Basic Education (UTDBE) programs run by the CoEs are just similar, however not the same. The exact same can be said of the Two-year Post-Diploma in Basic Education, Four-year Bachelor's degree programs run by the University of Cape Coast, the University of Education, Winneba and the other Universities and University Colleges. In effect although, same products attract same clients, the preparation of these products are done in different ways.

It is through these many programs that teachers are prepared for the fundamental schools - from nursery to senior high schools. Alternative pathways, or programs whereby teachers are prepared are noticed to be good in situations where you can find shortages of teachers and more teachers should be trained in just a very short time. An average example may be the UTDBE program, stated earlier, which design to equip non-professional teachers with professional skills. But this attempt to produce more teachers, because of shortage of teachers, has got the tendency of comprising quality.

As noted by Xiaoxia, Heeju, Nicci and Stone (2010) the factors that donate to the difficulties of teacher education and teacher retention are varied and complex, but one factor that teacher educators are worried about is the alternative pathways whereby teacher education occur. The prime aim of most of the pathways is to fast track teachers into the teaching profession. This short-changed the mandatory teacher preparation that prospective teachers need before becoming classroom teachers. Those that favor alternative routes, like Teach for America (TFA), in accordance with Xiaoxia, Heeju, Nicci and Stone (2010) have defended their alternative pathways by saying that even although the students are engaged in a short-period of pre-service training, the students are academically brilliant and so have the capacity to learn a great deal in a short period. Others argue that in subjects like English, Science and mathematics where there are usually shortages of teachers, there must be a deliberate opening up of alternative pathways to good candidates who'd done English, Mathematics and Science courses at the undergraduate level. None of these arguments to get alternative pathways, hold for the alternative teacher education programs in Ghana, where the academically brilliant students shun teaching because of reasons I'll come to.