Teacher Education Reform and Quality Evaluation in Ghana: Opposing Forces?

Abstract

Many countries around the world are implementing changes to their systems of teacher education in an effort to improve the way teachers teach and how much children learn in school. This dissertation uses the case of Ghana to examine how a suite of ambitious reforms—including the upgrading of teacher education to university education, a new Bachelor of Education curriculum, and changes to the regulation and oversight of teacher education—interact with enduring conventions and structures, which historically, have shaped the organizational character of institutions that train teachers (called colleges of education today). Adopting the sociological perspective of new institutional theory, this study examines the range of ways those who teach future teachers, lead colleges of education, and oversee teacher education, preserve or alter enduring conventions and structures, with a particular focus on processes of quality evaluation, such as accreditation, certification, external examination, and university affiliation, intended to maintain standards and ensure quality. The investigation adopted the method of comparative case study formalized by comparative and international development scholars Lesley Bartlett and Frances Vavrus (2016). Case study data were compared along a horizontal axis—instances of reform unfolding within three colleges of education—a vertical axis—perspectives on reform processes from individuals and organizations positioned along a local to global scale—and a transversal axis—which compared present-day processes in relation to what came before. The horizontal and vertical axes of comparison drew on interviews, observations, and document analysis, and focused on examining reform processes and individual and collective meaning-making, particularly as they relate to systems of authority and status within the arena of teacher education in Ghana. The transversal axis of comparison drew on archival sources and studies of the history of education in Ghana to build an understanding of the historical antecedents to conventions and structures that those implementing reforms today must contend. Drawing on the empirical evidence and historical narrative, and theorizing through comparison, the study found: (1) Pedagogical change within institutions that train teachers is possible when reforms encompass multiple institutional change processes, address regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional elements, and are implemented with technical and financial support; (2) Teaching methods yield to reform efforts more readily than conceptions of teacher education knowledge; (3) Processes of quality evaluation are institutional carriers that transport conceptions of knowledge and relational systems, and thus, act as forces that resist change in teacher education; and (4) Aspirations of modern teaching methods and ownership of improvement in teaching and learning are hindered when teacher educators do not have authority over the knowledge to train teachers and teacher training institutions are accorded low autonomy.