GES grants NTC Ghana Teacher Prize winners automatic promotion

The management of the Ghana Education Service (GES) under the auspices of the Ministry of Education (MoE) has granted winners of this academic year’s Ghana Teacher Prize (GTP) automatic promotion.

The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Dr Eric Nkansah, who disclosed this in a social media post sighted by Pretertiary.com, said the automatic promotion is to recognise their lifetime career achievement.

“Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Out of Turn awards. As part of their recognition, these distinguished teachers have been granted automatic promotions,” the Education Service Director-General said in the post.

This year, Madam Fuseina Fuseini, a Kindergarten teacher at the Madina SDA Basic School in the Greater Accra Region was adjudged the most outstanding teacher in the country for the year 2024 by the National Teaching Council (NTC).

The 47-year-old named the winner of the 2024 Ghana Teacher Prize for her prize received a three-bedroom apartment and an open scholarship to study abroad.

“I want to encourage all teachers across the country to also put in their best by adopting innovative ways of improving teaching and learning outcomes,” the Kindergarten teacher Fuseina Fuseini stated in a media interview.

Fifteen other teachers were also recognized and awarded at the Ghana Teachers Prize event. Their prizes included saloon and pick-up cars, laptops, motorcycles, scholarships, cash amounts and school in a box.

This year’s edition of the Ghana Teacher Prize (GTP) on the Theme: “Valuing Teacher Voices: Towards a New Social Contract for Education” scheduled for October 3, 2024, to October 5, 2024, was held in the Ashanti Regional capital, Kumasi.

Greater Kumasi was picked as the 2024 Ghana Teacher Prize hosteler after the NTC Registrar led a team of officials from his outfit to the region to engage stakeholders in preparation for this year’s ceremony slated for early October 2024.

The Ghana Teacher Prize (GTP) is open to all licensed teachers currently working at the pre-tertiary education space (both public and private) and have been teaching for not less than five (5) years.

The criteria for selecting the most outstanding teaching staff member who made the most significant contribution towards education delivery are as follows:

1. Recognition of a teacher’s achievements in the classroom and beyond from learners, colleagues, heads of schools or members of the wider community.

2. Employing effective instructional practices including Differentiated Learning (DL) that are replicable and scalable. For example, using non-typical instructional techniques that can be replicated in other classrooms.

3. Innovations and creativity – This includes the use of technology and coping with work in an extremely challenging era. The teacher sets realistic expectations and demonstrates problem-solving abilities.

4. Achieving demonstrable learning outcomes for diverse learners in the classroom. For example, through the improvement of student grades, learners’ attendance/behaviour; learners becoming achievers in the world of work, etc.

5. Ensuring learners receive value-based education that promotes global citizenship (different religions, cultures, and nationalities, linking up with schools in other parts of the community/ country, promoting exchange programmes, excursion)

6. Achievements in the community beyond the classroom that provide unique and distinguished models of excellence for the teaching profession and others.

7. Contribution to teaching and the teaching profession: Public debates, research activities, writing articles, blogs, media participation, social media campaigns, events, or conferences.

8. Professional competence – This category of assessment includes academic/professional qualifications, workshops and seminars, provision of in-service training and evidence of quality delivery of service. The teacher should be well informed, especially about educational policies and issues.

9. Personality factors – This includes social, moral, emotional, positive behaviour, role modeling to staff, learners, and community.