Master of Education in Teaching in Higher Education Programme (m.ed-THEd)

Proposed Programme Title: Master of Education in Teaching in Higher Education Programme (M.Ed-THEd)  Programme Rationale  In the last few decades, training and education of teachers in higher education was largely an in-service activity, voluntary and left to local initiative as was a common practice in many parts of the world.  Most institutions of higher education employed a great number of criteria for the selection and promotion of faculty members. Teaching skill was not universally regarded as a major criterion; and as a result, training for teaching was not a highly developed activity in higher education. But with the recent changes in higher education, planned training and education of academics have become major requirements of institutional and national quality assurance measures. Quality teaching has therefore become an issue of importance as the landscape of higher education has been facing continuous changes. The student body has considerably expanded and diversified both socially and geographically; new students call for new teaching methods. Modern technologies have entered the classroom, thus modifying the nature of the interactions between students and their lecturers. The governments, the students and their families, the employers, the funds providers increasingly demand value for their money and desire more efficiency through teaching. It therefore behooves on Academics in higher education to teach or provide high quality teaching that will make students learn effectively. It is against this background that the Centre for Teaching Support has decided to introduce this programme.   Thus, the overall goal of the programme will be to strengthen the overall institutional capacity in teaching and learning that is needed in order to improve the quality of higher education in Ghana. It will expose teachers/lecturers/tutors working in higher education to practical principles underpinning teaching, learning, assessment and research for teaching in higher education, in order to enable them effectively apply their disciplinary knowledge and skills to meeting the learning needs of their students. The target group of the M.Ed-THEd programme includes the following: i. Academic/teaching staff of public and private universities, tutors in colleges of education, nursing and midwifery training colleges and lecturers in the technical universities. ii. All master and doctoral degree holders who aspire to teach in tertiary institutions but have no formal qualifications in teaching in higher education. Proposed Date of Commencement: The programme is expected to commence in June 2018 (sandwich).