Effect and snags of provision of in-service education and training for teachers in basic schools for the deaf

Abstract

Regular and effective provision of in-service training for teachers is a necessary practice for the educational development of any country. The provision of effective in-service training and education for special teachers is however bedeviled with many challenges. To appraise the effect and problems of inservice training in Ghana, a survey involving 90 teachers from three schools for the deaf namely: Savelugu, Wa and Gbeogo Schools for the Deaf were sampled in this study. A set of 94 questionnaire and 4 exclusive separate interviews sessions were used to collect data for the study. The data was tallied into frequency tables and percentage distribution tables were generated from MS Excel for further interpretation and discussion. The study revealed that in-service training programmes are few and highly ineffective. There is a general delink between what the special teacher needs and what is provided leading to the little use of knowledge and skills acquired from the training. Lack of material resources, teaching aids, modern equipment and funding opportunities have served as a huge blockage to the provision of effective in-service training and education. In-service training can only be made effective if it is preceded by needs assessment with funding made available for the training of teachers of special schools.