This is an article a teacher trainee wrote about the UCC redrawal policy.
I woke up this morning and upon picking up my phone, I realised that I have 22 missed calls with numerous WhatsApp messages which read:
I am going home, Prince….; Goodbye, College President… and amongst others on various platforms of my college.
I became surprise and passive for a while only to know that everything was a reality. At the very moment, all I wished was to meet either the President or the Minister in charge of education and defended my people but that could not be. Hence, I write this article explaining some of the reasons why *victimized trainees* should be given the chance to redeem themselves.
Firstly, the emergence of the CETAG strike is a reason why victimized trainees should be given a chance to redeem themselves. The admission of the 2018/2019 Academic Year trainees was crippled with over one-month strike action by CETAG. CETAG embarked on this strike action to seek for what they seemed to be legitimately theirs while these trainees wait on them to take them through this new programme. Time and funds were wasted as a result of this action.
Also, aside the limited time as a result of the above-mentioned action, teachers or lecturers randomly attended workshops. These lecturers missed some instructional hours even though students could have benefited. If lecturers who have to guide the trainees in this new programme had to attend workshops to be enlightened before being able to teach, what does the teacher trainee who does not even know the details of the programme learn while these lecturers are away?
Moreover, inadequate teaching and learning materials is a reason for which victimized trainees should be given the chance to redeem themselves. Teaching and learning materials to be used in the course of the programme were not enough and in some instances did not exist in some of the colleges of education; sometimes, these materials delayed in their provision where the case may be. This made teaching and learning difficult.
Furthermore, variations in course outlines across the various colleges is a reason why victimized trainees should be given the chance to redeem themselves. This is because the course outlines for teaching some courses vary from college to college. As a result, answers provided to examination questions differ from the ones provided by the Institute of Education, UCC. Clear evidence was a course titled Child and Adolescent Development and Learning.
In addition, upon the numerous workshops organized for lecturers, these lecturers come to class to tell students that they do not even know what to teach. What do trainees introduced to this new programme learn whilst those to lead them are even confused?
Again, students spend time and effort studying a course only to be told on a week, a day or later to examination that they would be writing different course instead. How do you expect students in this situation to pass examination?
In conclusion, these teacher trainees had to endure all these challenges and others not mentioned to complete 16 weeks curriculum in 12 weeks. Again, teacher trainees were not informed about the policy governing withdrawal of students upon admission into the college until some weeks to the end of second semester of the first year.
*There are many professors, doctors, lawyers and great men who failed including Thomas Edison who failed so many times before inventing bulbs, and that of the Wright Brothers who invented aeroplane, and amongst others. Yet, they had the chance to redeem themselves and now the world can boast of them.*
On this note, I call on the Government and opinion leaders to intervene for trainees who are victims of circumstance so that they could be allowed to resit the papers they failed and redeemed themselves. Hereinafter, trainees who couldn’t redeem himself or herself be withdrawn.
If this case is not taken up by the government for a quick resolution, let’s not blame anybody at times where these victimized trainees become the problems of the country someday.
OWUSU PRINCE KWABENA – SRC PRESIDENT, SDA COLLEGE OF EDUCATION.
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