Moving from teacher accountability to teacher development: Lessons from teacher appraisal.

Abstract

The search for quality performance of teachers has of late become an issue for management in educational institutions. Teacher performance appraisal has been identified as an effective instrument for promoting teacher performance quality)'. This article looks at the teacher appraisal scheme of Britain and argues for its introduction in the Ghanaian school system. It argues that the strategy for assessing and supervising teacher performance in Ghana is inadequate. /r does not promote professional development among researchers. It rather instills unnecessary fear in them and eventual/y suppresses the spirit of iniriariveness needed for the advancement! Of their; Professional practice.

Approaches for Sustainability of College-Based Departmentalized Continuous Professional Development Programme for the Academic Staff of Selected Volta Region Colleges of Education, Ghana

“…This gives the advantage to the colleges to have management staff in team-coaching younger and inexperienced workers to get on board better in terms of managerial activities and performances in their various sectors. This reflected in the findings of Oduro (1998) in a research on the theme 'moving from teacher accountability to teacher development: lessons from teacher appraisal', with findings that among Ghanaian teachers, the appraisal scheme has the strength of helping teachers to get a clear view of their needs and greater confidence in asking for them to be met. Oduro reiterated the qualities of an appraisal processes to buttress the confidence building process when he cited the practical scene of the Graham Report of 1985 in Britain which stressed that appraisers must have credibility and inspire the trust and confidence of the staff they appraise and issues to be covered at the beginning stage and be made known to the appraise should include the area (s) of the teacher's work to be appraised; specific information to be gathered; who will be involved in providing the information to be carried out; the number and length of classroom observations to be carried out; and the timetable for the appraisal cycle.…”

“…Beneficiaries of the teachers' services, for instance, students could be used to appraise teachers and supervisors could also do same. Oduro (1998) research findings buttressed this when he maintained that after arriving at an agreement regarding which areas the appraiser and appraise will want to focus on, they have to decide on how the data on the selected areas can be collected. He pointed at West and Bollington (1990) who have identified 'self-appraisal, task observation / job shadowing, collecting the views of relevant people by interview / questionnaires, classroom observation, analyzing documentation, looking at pupils' work and analyzing test / exams results' as some approaches to information gathering to adopt.…”