A Centre of Transformative Education is to be established at the University of Cape Coast to provide professional development on transformative pedagogies to tutors of colleges of education, teacher educators at the university, school improvement officers at the Ghana Education Offices and pre-tertiary teachers.

The Centre, which will replace the Outreach Unit of the Institute of Education, will also support evidence-based and inclusive learning, instructional technology, online teaching, and general innovative teaching practices.

The Centre will run short courses, upgrading programmes, and postgraduate programmes in transformative pedagogies and teacher education, as well as grant proposals for projects in transformative education.

The Provost of the College of Education Studies, Prof. Ernest Kofi Davis announced this at a stakeholders’ engagement on the creation of the Centre for Transformative Education at the Institute of Education dedicated to supporting quality teacher education for transformative learning outcomes.

The Stakeholders’ engagement brought together staff members of the Ghana Education Service and the University of Cape Coast.

Provost of the College of Education Studies, Prof. Ernest Kofi Davis, addressing the participants

He explained that the Institute in collaboration with the Global Institute for Transformative Education at Ball State University with the support of Carnegie Diaspora Fellow had developed a proposal to re-orient and upgrade the outreach unit as a Centre of Transformative Education to serve “as a go-to place for teacher educators and schools for help.”

Prof. Davis indicated that with the introduction of a standard-based curriculum, it was abundantly clear that the focus of teaching and learning had changed considerably from evidence of knowledge and processes to evidence of application of the knowledge in a real-world context.

Therefore, the Provost stressed the need for the Institute to make a deliberate effort to orient itself to respond to the national need, as a pacesetter to graduate teacher education in the country.

He called on all stakeholders to support the lofty idea of the Institute to offer concrete curricular linkages between university programmes and the private sector.

Prof. Davis pointed out that the Centre would provide consultancy and upgrade programmes in primary, junior and senior high school teaching.

Diaspora Scholar at the Ball State University, USA, Prof. Michael Ndemanu

He stated that all twenty-one (21) areas of the National Teaching Council short courses for continuous professional development points had been reviewed to give them transformational orientation.

At the programme, the Diaspora Scholar at the Ball State University, USA, Prof. Michael Ndemanu, spoke on “Transformative Education: Its Role in Improving Human Development Index.”

Source: Documentation and Information Section-UCC