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The Forum for Education Reform (FFER), has warned government about plans to establish 10 new Colleges of Education as a way to advance education in the country. The Forum, which is spearheaded by local policy think tank IMANI-Ghana, believes "a more cost effective and efficient way for government to achieve its laudable objective of improving teacher education lies in the expansion and improvement of current facilities within the existing 38 colleges." In a statement released by the "group of eminent Ghanaians, educationists, leaders of industry, business people and researchers" , FFER said expansion and improvement of current facilities by government would expand capacity and improve quality with less public expenditure. "Despite the existing colleges being recently upgraded to tertiary status, there are still persistent issues with quality", the statement said. FFER said for government to improve the quality of teacher training colleges in the country, it must improve the facilities, update the quality of instruction, infuse technology, and update the teaching methods and models, amongst others. They said these and other developments would result in better output from the teacher training institutions. While FFER commended government for taking steps to improve the teacher training sector. It also provided the following recommendations: 1. The government should not pursue its current goal to establish 10 new tertiary institutions. The said government must instead invest in the existing institutions and expand their facilities in order to the improve quality of output. 2. FFER said presently, "the colleges of education have an average enrolment of about 400 students. Their enrolment can easily be doubled without much expansion in the existing facilities to cover what the proposed ten new institutions would provide." 3 The Forum said there was an urgent need to evaluate and establish firmly where Education Colleges fit vis-à-vis Universities. The said curriculum development must also meet global standards. 4. The Forum further noted that there is a believable perception across the political divide that an overhaul of the current teacher training system is necessary to preserve and enhance the nation’s best asset, which is human resource, stating the consequence of neglect of this area will severely undermine Ghana’s development. 5 Finally, FFER concludes by stating that because the nexus between appropriate investments in education and economic development is firmly established, education policy makers in government must determine the right areas where such investments ought to be made. "The Forum for Education Reform is prepared to work with government and like-minded organisations to attain the right standards for teacher training in Ghana", said the release.

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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.