Winneba (C/R) May 31, GNA-Teachers at the end of their three-day National Conference on Teacher Education in Winneba have presented a communiqu=E9 to the government on how best education in the country could be promoted.

In the communiqu=E9 the teachers called for a review of the current course outline and descriptions to make it easier for transition from the conventional classroom to the Open and Distance Learning environment.

They also called on the government to appoint a deputy Minister solely responsible for Open and Distance Learning (ODL), adding that the minister will, among other things, ensure that the various ODL providers see themselves as partners rather than competitors in the business. The communiqu=E9 called for the formation of a task force to develop guidelines to ensure integration of literacy across the curriculum and to develop model lessons to show best approaches and research-based practices to educate teachers.

"We should emphasize literacy across all subjects in the curriculum during teacher training with the hope that this practice will translate into teachers' classroom practices at the school level". They called on the Ghana Education Service to revise its approach to the promotion of teachers since promotion based solely on long service and academic qualifications alone was not the best. It called for holistic implementation of Technical Vocational Education as provided for, in the Education Reforms Programmes and that the training of teachers for these programmes must be effective. The participants who later launched the Association of Teacher Educators said that the newly formed association is not a trade union or a rival to any existing teachers' association. 31 May 07