Teacher Trainees’ Experiences and Challenges in Project Work at Colleges of Education in Ghana: The Case of a College in Southern Ghana

Abstract

Project work plays a key role in the training of teachers because it prepares them to be able to research their practices to improve teaching and learning. This case study explored teacher trainees’ experiences and challenges in doing project work using the views of a cross section of trainees from one College of Education in southern Ghana. Twenty-two Diploma in Basic Education teacher trainees who completed their programme from 2017 to 2020 participated in the study. The data was collected through an open-ended online questionnaire. The data collected were analysed qualitatively and presented as narratives with some illustrative examples. The results from the study revealed the trainees reporting that their experiences working with supervisors were generally good. They however reported a number of challenges, with financial challenges associated with the cost of traveling to their colleges to see supervisors being the most common. The study recommended among other things, the need for the management of the Colleges of Education to ensure that trainees would not have to travel frequently to colleges to meet supervisors to save cost and equip the trainees to ensure that their experiences through project work build their core skills.