Mr. Prince Laryea, a renowned Licensed Psychologist and Unit Head for the JHS Department at Komenda College of Education has thrown a challenge to the Chief Director at the Ministry of Education, Divine Ayidzoe to present data and relevant documents to support his claim of “teacher trainees who have written BECE, WASSCE and undergone scrutiny at UCC and UEW cannot write a single sentence”.
The Counselor believes such a statement from a ‘high-profile’ like him is baseless and loose.
In an interaction with Coleman Publications on Wednesday, 7th December 2022, Counselor Laryea posited the Director must come out and set the records straight with facts and figures. He believes what the Director said was far overboard.
“On what basis was this assertion made? What data supports such a claim? Sometimes, I wonder why people who are supposed to know better make such loose statements. What does the licensure data says, what did that data seeks to measure? what category or aspect of the data generated draws the line or gives that percentage of losers..these are questions with respective answers that must be addressed rather than just raw unsubstantiated statements”, Counselor Laryea expressed.
Mr. Laryea, however, is calling on the director to ‘come out’ and provide concrete evidence to support his claim as what he said has a lot of negative effects on trainees, adding if such is not available then he must apologize to the public and trainees for such a statement.
It could be recalled the Chief Director made such a statement at a stakeholders conference held on 4th December 2022 on the way forward to ensuring the 2022/2023 applicants write an entrance examination.
He stated the examination will be based on two core subjects – Mathematics and English, adding the examination will help in selecting people who are genuinely qualified for the teaching fraternity.
“If we are talking about teacher quality, I think it is time. Even the licensure examination data shows that trained teachers who have written BECE, and WASSCE, and undergone scrutiny at UCC and UEW cannot write a single sentence correctly and worse things from other institutions. How are they going to teach? So there is a call that from next year, entrance examinations in Mathematics and English should be conducted so that the qualified candidates will be selected to enter into the Colleges of Education. We have to get the best to enter our Colleges of Education”. Mode of training at the Colleges will have to be monitored well, he stated.
