“Lazy teachers’ school” becomes a model in Ghana’s second largest city

Kentikrono is a deprived urban community in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city. Its only public primary school, Kentikrono Metropolitan Authority Primary, enrolled only 215 pupils in 1999. The pupils could not correctly express themselves in English. Teachers neither prepared detailed lesson plans for effective presentation of lessons nor used teaching and learning materials. Community-teacher relations were so poor that parents openly called the school “lazy teachers’ school”.

In 1999, USAID introduced the Quality Improvements in Primary Schools (QUIPS) intervention to the school, designed to provide children with quality basic education. Teachers, the School Management Committee (SMC), and executive members of Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of the school acquired various skills to help improve pupil learning and increase community support for the school’s activities. The teachers upgraded their skills in lesson note preparation, use of teaching and learning materials, and effective classroom management, and started applying these skills. The SMC was sensitized to its role in supporting the school in providing quality basic education. It learned how to prepare action plans and keep cash books. Meetings were also organized with the community to discuss the need to visit the school regularly, participate in school activities, and provide basic needs of their children.

Four years into the USAID intervention, Susan Senchery, headmistress of the school said “QUIPS has brought to Kentikrono school good teaching and learning practices, good community relations, and high academic performance”. Kentikrono primary placed first in English and second in Mathematics in a test organized in 2003 for 20 primary schools in the area. Since 2001, the school placed first in quiz competitions organized for schools in the area. Pupils are now enthusiastic about expressing themselves in English in school and at home. With this impressive performance, some parents have withdrawn their wards from nearby schools and enrolled them in Kentikrono, raising the enrollment from 215 in 1999 to 495 in 2004.

The local junior secondary school also benefited from the intervention. The final results of the first batch of QUIPS graduates who proceeded to the junior secondary section raised the school’s placement among public schools in the city of Kumasi from 80th to 60th position, while the second batch further improved it to 46th position in 2003.

Kentikrono Primary, once identified as a “lazy teacher’s school”, has become a model in the city of Kumasi where over 50 head teachers and many more teachers have visited to learn school and class management, community relations, record keeping, and preparation of detailed lesson notes.

Relations between parents and teachers have also improved remarkably. Nine out of ten parents now attend PTA meetings and pay regular visits to the school to find out their children’s academic performance and school attendance. In order to ensure that children have time to complete their homework, parents have reduced their children’s visits to video houses after school. When teachers give out assignments, parents supervise and sign the completed exercises of their wards.

The experience at Kentikrono Primary demonstrates how much can be achieved when the community, teachers and school management work in partnership to improve education.