The Most Reverend Francis Anani Kofi Lodonu, the Catholic Bishop of Ho, has urged the Ghana Education Service (GES) to consider changing the academic calendar for colleges of education to four years.

He said the three-year period of training teachers was not making the expected impact on the educational system hence the need for a review.

Bishop Lodonu said this at the launch of the phase II of an in-service training for teachers, and a sensitisation programme for students in the Ho Diocese of the Catholic Church.

The project, aimed at helping to improve academic performance in the Diocese, is under the auspices of the Development Office of the Diocese with funding from Kindermissionswerk in Germany.

He said a review of the academic calendar, with three years on campus and a year off campus in the form of fieldwork, could better prepare teachers.

Bishop Lodonu said though teachers alone could not be blamed for the falling standard of education in the country, they played a major role and they needed to be given the requisite training for quality delivery in the classroom.

A cursory observation, he said, indicated that most teachers were only interested in making more money under the umbrella of extra classes, which was not helpful.

He asked them to learn how to “give freely and not count the cost of reward”, saying the desire and pride of teachers should be the upliftment of their students.

Mr Jacob Kor, the Director General of the Ghana Education Service, said teachers ought to know that their preoccupation on earth was to know and love God and the children trusted in their care.

He called for a relook at the language policy in the country’s educational system, arguing that, instructing kindergarten children and lower primary pupils in the English Language was affecting quality delivery of education and this amounted to downplaying the local languages.

The in-service training would benefit a total of 315 teachers with practical and efficient skills in teaching Mathematics, Science, English Language, Social Studies, Religious and Moral Studies and Information Communication Technology (ICT) in primary and Junior High Schools in the Diocese.

More than 4,000 students, mainly girls, would be taken through effective ways of learning those subjects with a three-year scholarship package for 210 Junior High School and Senior High School students.

A total of 105 teachers and over 200 students have benefited from the first phase.