In-service teacher training : a case study of primary school's untrained teachers in Northern Ghana

Abstract

This thesis analyzes a case study on untrained teacher in-service education located in northern Ghana, Africa. The purpose of the thesis is to explore the in-service teacher training phenomenon as it occurs in a national socio-economic context. The research ambition is accomplished in an exploratory field study design. I collected empirical data at different societal levels in Ghana’s education system, although the main contribution is drawn from a single case study, labeled School A. This thesis provides an analytical discussion of the findings I collected while in Ghana in October and November of 2006, interviewing the actors involved with these gaps, in the light of relevant theory. I apply Lave’s and Wenger’s (1991) theory of situated learning, and Wenger’s (1998) notion of community of practice as a theoretical framework for understanding better the phenomenon under investigation. The case study provides empirical evidence of how the untrained teachers learned to teach and used one another as resources. The research has, however, identified a range of mismatches between policy goals, official plans, real life practices, along with practical interruptions the teachers’ daily workplace learning. I conceptualize these reoccurring situations as gaps that occur at the school, as well as the macro (national educational level) and meso (school district level) level of education in Ghana. The gaps include lack of resources, communication, finances, in addition to managerial support and facilitation of learning at the micro level. The case study illuminates empirically that School A has developed a community of practice, although at a rudimentary and immature stage, a survival community of practice. I propose to apply the concept of community of practice with the purpose of training their untrained teachers and socializing them into professional teaching. In this perspective, the community of practice emerges as an ideal model to fill these recurrent gaps. In the discussion, I address critical factors and preconditions for the ideal model of a community of practice to work as learning and knowledge structures to facilitate in-service training of unskilled teachers.