GES gives deadline to phase out writing of school lesson notes

The Ghana Education Service (GES) says it after distributing the TM1 laptops to all public basic school teachers and giving them the necessary training on how to use machines will phase out the writing of school lesson notes.

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GES’s comment was to address and end a debate as to whether school lesson notes should be handwritten or printed by government school teachers, especially in the midst of the ‘one teacher, one laptop’ programme.

In a release copied to EducationWeb, the Service said it is mandatory for every school teacher to prepare a lesson note, manually (handwritten) or electronically (printed) which must be approved by the head of schools and supervisors.

It said it had discussed with the various teacher unions and reached a consensus that both types of lesson notes (written or printed) should be accepted but based on an agreement between a teacher and his/her circuit supervisor.

“If a supervisor agrees that it should be prepared and submitted electronically, it should be allowed. Where it cannot be transmitted electronically, a printout of typed lesson notes should be submitted for vetting and approval,” it noted.

The Management of the Ghana Education Service (GES) added that “Where for any valid reason if it cannot be prepared electronically, it should be done manually based on the agreement between the teacher and supervisor.”

According to the Service, it will completely phase out the traditional way of preparing lesson notes once the state of the art brand new Mate 1 laptops has duly been distributed to all government school teachers across the country.

“Management wishes to emphasis that the feasibility phasing out of the manual preparation of lesson notes will be discussed at the appropriate time when every teacher has received his/her laptop and trained,” GES said in the release.

In a related development, the Minister for Education, Dr Adutwum has said the Ghana Education Service at the appropriate time will engage heads of public schools and supervisors to discuss issues of the writing of lesson notes.

In an interview monitored by EducationWeb, the Bosomtwe Member of Parliament said the Education Service in due course will engage headteachers and circuit supervisors to consider printed lesson notes from public school teachers.

“Every teacher must make lesson notes and now teachers with the support of the TM1 laptop can type and print the notes. Teachers don’t need to submit only handwritten lesson notes,” the Minister in charge of Education said.

He added “In this 21st century, it is not obligatory for teachers to write lesson notes. The Management of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has put in place measures to ensure printed lesson notes are accepted by headteachers.”