Transforming Teaching: A Deep Dive into the National Teachers’ Standards for Ghana

 The National Teachers’ Standards represent the first ever collectively agreed standards to guide teacher preparation and practice in the country. The standards have been developed as a professional tool to guide teacher educators, teachers, student teachers and other stakeholders in education to identify in clear and precise terms what teachers are expected to know and be able to do, qualities they are expected to possess and some behaviour they are supposed to exhibit (NTS, 2017).

Give honour to whom honour is due. Nothing can be taken away from the instrumental role of the NPP government under Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh (minister of education, as was then) in seeing the full implementation of these enterprising standards.

That said, permit me to sharea few traces within this enviable curriculum. The standards are divided into three domains and aspects. These three domains and aspects encompass what teachers should value, know, and do and intersect with one another to develop a teacher competent enough to teach at the end of their four-year initial teacher training.

1. Professional Values and Attitudes(NTS, 2017; page 13)

Professional Development

The Teacher (s):

1. Critically and collectively reflects to improve teaching and learning.
2. Improves personal and professional development through lifelong learning and Continuous Professional Development.
3. Demonstrate practical growing leadership qualities in the classroom and broader school.

Community of Practice

The Teacher:

1. Is guided by legal and ethical teacher codes of conduct in his or her development as a professional teacher.
2. Engages positively with colleagues, learners, parents, school management committees, parent-teacher associations and the broader public as part of a community of practice.
3. Develops a positive teacher identity and acts as a good role model for students.
4. Sees his or her role as a potential agent of change in the school, community and country.
5. Professional Knowledge (NTS, 2017; page 14)

Knowledge of educational frameworks and curriculum

The Teacher:

1. Demonstrates familiarity with the education system and key policies guiding it.
2. Has comprehensive knowledge of the official school curriculum, including learning outcomes.
3. Has secure content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for the school and grade they teach.
4. At pre-primary and primary school, the teacher knows the curriculum for the years appropriate to multigrade classes; has good knowledge of how to teach beginning reading and numeracy and speaking, listening, and writing; and uses at least one Ghanaian language as a medium of instruction.

Knowledge of students

1. Understand how children develop and learn in diverse contexts and apply this in his or her teaching.
2. Takes account of and respects learners’ cultural, linguistic, socio-economic and educational backgrounds in planning and teaching.
3. Professional Practice (NTS, 2017; page 15)

Managing the learning environment

The Teacher:

1. Plans and delivers varied and challenging lessons, showing a clear grasp of the intended outcomes of their teaching.
2. Carriers out small-scale action research to improve practice.
3. Creates a safe, encouraging learning environment.
4. Manages behaviour and learning with small and large classes.

Teaching and Learning

The Teacher:

1. Employs a variety of instructional strategies that encourage student participation and critical thinking.
2. Pays attention to all learners, especially girls and students with Special Educational Needs, ensuring their progress.
3. Employs instructional strategies appropriate for mixed ability, multilingual and multi-age classes.
4. Sets meaningful tasks that encourage learner collaboration and lead to purposeful learning.
5. Explains concepts using examples familiar to students.
6. Produces and uses a variety of teaching and learning resources, including ICT, to enhance learning.

Assessment

The Teacher:

1. Integrates a variety of assessment modes into teaching to support learning.
2. Listens to learners and gives constructive feedback.
3. Identifies and remediates learners’ difficulties or misconceptions, referring learners whose needs lie outside the competency of the Teacher.
4. Keeps meaningful records of every learner and communicates progress clearly to parents and learners.
5. Demonstrates awareness of national and school learning outcomes of learners.
6. Uses objective criterion referencing to assess learners.

The National Teacher’s Standards for Ghana has exemplars for use by student teachers, teachers, tutors, head teachers and mentors. For anyone to suggest that this core competency framework requires change needs to offer us what no country has produced.

If not, then it is very obvious that the current curriculum has everything to produce the Ghanaian students we anticipate. The current curriculum places the learner at the centre of teaching and learning by building on their existing life experiences, knowledge and understanding. Learners are actively involved in the knowledge-creating process, with the Teacher acting as a facilitator.

This involves using interactive and practical teaching and learning methods and the learner’s environment to make learning exciting and relatable. To make it even more appealing, the new curriculum focuses on Ghanaian culture, history, and geography so that learners first understand their home and surroundings before extending their knowledge globally.

What could be more beautiful than this? The curriculum also integrates shared Ghanaian values, ensuring that all young people grasp the essence of being a responsible Ghanaian citizen. These values, including truth, integrity, diversity, equity, self-directed learning, self-confidence, adaptability, resourcefulness, leadership, and responsible citizenship, are woven into the fabric of the curriculum.

In an interview, a respected committee member emphasised that the Education Forum also aims to address the foundational knowledge that seems to be lacking. I find this assertion a challenge, as the new curriculum incorporates foundational knowledge as part of 21^st-century skills and core competencies.

These include literacy, numeracy, scientific literacy, information and communication and digital literacy, financial literacy and entrepreneurship, cultural identity, civic literacy, and global citizenship. Character qualities such as discipline and integrity, self-directed learning, self-confidence, leadership, and responsible citizenship are all integral to this curriculum. As I always do, the government should focus on implementing the following:

Areas to target

1. Infrastructural investments (acute infrastructural deficit)
2. Teacher motivation
3. Payment of capitation grant
4. Resourcing the school improvement plan
5. Providing ICT laboratories
6. Research Fund for Pre-Tertiary Institution
7. Digital libraries
8. Government Assisted Mortgage Scheme (GAMOS)
9. Initiate a scheme to assist teachers to own vehicles of their choice by offering flexible duty payment arrangements and government guarantees in partnership with teacher unions and the banking sector.

By Felix Oppusu Paapa Agyiri (PhD-Candidate) [Educational Sociologist] Paapafelix160@gmail.com