Broadly, Teachers’ Continuous Professional Development is a systematic and sustained process by which a teacher not only maintains, but also improves and expands his/her professional knowledge, values and skills.
The Teachers’ Continuous Professional Development Framework (‘TCPD Framework’) is designed by the National Teaching Council of Ghana and formalizes a teacher’s responsibility and commitment to being a professionally competent and relevant practitioner.
The Framework serves as a guideline for Teachers, Education Directors, Teacher Education Service Providers and other stakeholders on provision of quality teacher training programmes for In-Service Teachers.
The Framework has identified different activities which have been grouped as;
- Mandatory
- Ranked Based and
- Recommended activities
The latter is also grouped into categories based on the complexity nature of the activities and level of involvement of the teacher. This is to ensure consistency in calculation of and validity in assigning credit points.
Teachers at specific ranks are to access activities from both Mandatory and Ranked Based Training.
In addition, they are required to select any of the categories within the Recommended Training to meet a required Teachers Continuous Professional Development point at that rank in a 3 year TCPD cycle.
The teacher can access training from the employer, either at the school level through Professional Learning Communities-PLC (School Based, Departmental Based or Cluster Based) Community of Practice – CoP (Workshop for Heads of Institutions or School Improvement Officers (SIO) or teachers for a particular subject or teachers of a particular class (BS3, BS1, KG2) or teachers assigned with common roles and responsibilities.
Such programmes are mostly supply driven. Teachers can also use the teachers’ portal to access Teachers Continuous Professional Development activities from Accredited Service Providers on Demand.
Development Partners and NGO’s working closely with the Ministry of Education are also certified to collaborate with District Education offices to provide supply driven programmes to teachers.
National Teaching Council will collaborate with National Schools Inspectorate Authority to monitor such trainings to ensure standards are met.
The framework provides formulas for calculating Teachers Continuous Professional Development points at their respective ranks.
TCPD activities are documented in Teachers’ Log book as backup records which are transposed to the teacher’s online account.
Names of certified activities are saved in the portal for CPD providers to select and award points to teachers who may attend that programme.
In addition to the Teacher’s Continuous Professional Development points, teachers are also required to build their own portfolio for assessment and these two points and Portfolio Assessment Grade are used to determine the professional standing of the teacher.
Should a teacher meet the TCPD point requirements but failed in Portfolio Assessment or the other way, that teacher cannot renew his or her license and cannot practice as a teacher according to the Teacher Regulatory ACT of Ghana.
Teachers who accept postings to where the employer and the National Teaching Council define as deprived area are given additional opportunities to access 2 demand deriving CPD programme which shall be organized by the employer in collaboration with the National Teaching Council without any payment by the employee except for transportation and feeding.
Source: GESHub.org
