The Institute for Distance Education and e-Learning (IDeL), has opened a five-week intensive workshop to resource tutors of the institute to effectively teach the second-semester courses for the implementation of the new curriculum for basic education and the use of UEW’s Learning Management System (LMS).
The workshop currently ongoing at the Wadoma Royale Hotel, Abuakwa-Kumasi, will see some selected 650 tutors drawn across the country taking turns in various cohorts over the five weeks for the training.
Speaking on the purpose of the workshop, the Deputy Registrar, IDeL, Mr. Williams Agyei-Bieni, indicated that there had been a complete paradigm shift in the preparation of basic school teachers; that is, early grade, upper primary and Junior High School options. It had, therefore, become imperative for the Management of IDel to organize this workshop to enable tutors to be taken through the manuals so that they will know what is expected of them to enable them to tutor well.
The Director, IDeL, Prof. Francis Owusu Mensah, thanked the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Anthony Afful-Broni, for his support for the transformation agenda at IDeL aimed at improving the quality of the delivery of distance education programmes.
“So, if you’ve been observing, the only distance education programme in this country, which regularly organises staff development programmes for its staff, tutors, administrators and coordinators, is UEW,” he stressed.
Prof. Owusu Mensah averred that staff development programmes are the engine of growth for every human organisation and added that workshops are meant to solve problems when new challenges arise and there is the need to bring everybody on board to find a solution to the common problem.
“In this context, we are confronted with two main issues for which this workshop is perfectly placed to deal with. Number one is the new curriculum the Deputy Registrar talked about. Number two is the global pandemic which has also drastically changed the paradigm of the teaching and learning we are used to”.
So with these two major events, a new policy for the training of basic school teachers and the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made it very difficult and unadvisable for our old ways of teaching and learning, that is, in-person to online teaching and learning. This has brought fresh demands to our work as tutors and as lecturers. It is, therefore, crucial that we assemble you, share ideas and develop solutions to the challenges that confront us”.
He pointed out that the initiative is a major aspect of the quality assurance practices of IDeL to build the capacity of tutors to deliver quality tutorials to its precious students. He advised participants to take the workshop seriously to justify the investment put into it.