13,600 untrained teachers to benefit from UTTDBE

Obuasi, Dec. 22, GNA - Ghana Education Service (GES) has called on stakeholders in education to make sacrifices to ensure the success of the Untrained Teachers Diploma In Basic Education (UTTDBE) programme which has taken off in Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo regions. Already, 5,600 untrained teachers from all the districts in the three Northern regions and Afram Plains district in the Eastern region have been enrolled in the programme.

About 8,000 untrained teachers in Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo are expected to benefit from the UTTDBE.

Mr Michael Nsowah, Acting Director-General of GES, in a speech read on his behalf at the opening of the first induction course and face-to-face meeting of the UTTDBE programme in the Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo regions at the Akrokerri College of Education, said districts and support cadres of the programme would be required to re-dedicate themselves and work hard to support the trainees. He said the programme would increase the number of trained teachers by reducing the number of untrained teachers from the current 21 per cent in the primary schools and 12.6 per cent in the junior secondary schools to not more than five per cent at each level. Mr Nsowah said about 24,000 untrained teachers were currently teaching in the basic schools in the country and the Government intended to provide the enabling environment to get about 60 per cent of them into the UTTDBE.

The Acting Director-General said under the programme, teacher-training colleges would be required to prepare themselves for the additional roles and challenges that the programme entailed. He said the GES would continue to employ the services of untrained teachers especially for the underserved areas and that was why opportunities should be provided for this category of teachers to be trained to acceptable standards so that they could provide the needed service in the schools.

There were goodwill messages to the trainees from Directors of Education from their respective districts namely, Adansi North, Adansi South, Amansie West and Amansie Central.