Assessment of the Relevance and Experience of Point-Based Teacher Continuous Professional Development (PBTCPD) Workshops in Ghana (Published)
The Government of Ghana introduced the Teacher Professional Allowance to improve teachers’ continuous professional development. Following the introduction of the allowance, there has been an increase in the number of workshops organized for teachers at a fee across the country. This paper assessed the Relevance and Experiences of the Points-Based Teacher Continuous Professional Development (PBTCPD) Workshops in the Bono Region of Ghana. The study employed an online survey design using a close-ended and open-ended questionnaire as the data collection instrument. 358 trained in-service teachers participated in the study. The data from the study were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results from the study show that the workshop contents were relevant but did not meet the needs of teachers. Moreover, the analysis of the teachers’ views on the PBTCPD suggests that there was little or no desire to attend the point-based CPD workshop. In addition to this, despite the significant effort of using the point-based CPD workshop as both a promotional and effective teaching and learning tool, the overwhelming majority of the teachers saw the point-based teacher CPD workshop as one of the means to take back the Teacher Professional Allowance.
Keywords: Continuous Professional Development, Experience, Professional Development, Relevance, point-based workshop