Education Minister calls for Industrial peace to transform Colleges of Education 

Kumasi-Ghana, Nov. 21, GNA – Education Minister Yaw Osei Adutwum has called for industrial peace and harmony to help achieve the goals of the ongoing transformation agenda of colleges of education.
He said the colleges were currently going through the transitional processes of what they intended to do in relation to teacher education and training and were expected to encounter challenges, which required dialogue, and not industrial unrest and strikes.
Mr. Adutwum stated this in an address read on his behalf at the centenary celebrations of Wesley College, in Kumasi.
The celebration was on the theme: “Hundred Years of Leadership and Service for Nation Building.”
The Minister said the time had come for the colleges of education to be identified by the calibre of graduates they produced, and that the uniqueness must be informed by something better and differently crafted by the institutions.
He said the dynamics and demands of the current socio-economic and political dispensation required a different approach to the way things were done and it was important for all stakeholders to brace themselves for a change.
Dr Adutwum commended Wesley College for its unique role in teacher education and training and said the government was committed to providing adequate resources to position the college to compete with the traditional universities in the country.
He appealed to all striking unions in the Colleges of Education architecture to call off their strikes since the government was working to address their grievances.
Mrs. Charlotte Rockson, Principal of the College, said, as one of the oldest educational institutions in the country, Wesley College had depicted what it meant to be an institution of excellence as they chalked several successes in academic and co-curricular activities.
In 2022, the college hosted the inter-colleges of education debate and quiz competition amongst 13 colleges and won the ultimate prize.
The College also showed some spectacular performances during the Biennial Sports completion for colleges of education in 2022, emerging first in both men and women volleyball section.
Mrs. Rockson said there had been a remarkable improvement in infrastructure in the school although there was more to be done to meet the demands of time and appealed to stakeholders to acquire a bus for the college to convey students to various assigned basic schools for the supported teaching exercise as an important aspect of the 4-year Bachelor of Education curriculum.
Nana Agyen Frimpong Ababio, the Tafohene, who chaired the occasion, said the chiefs would continue to support the college in any way possible to make it one of the best in the country.
From humble beginning in 1922 at Aburi on the Akuapem Hills of Ghana with only thirty students, Wesley College now has a student population of 1,759 and the programmes offered in the college have been upgraded from 2-year Cert-B through a series of programs to the new four- year Bachelor of Education (BED).