Abstract:
Although there is equal access to education for all, at all the level of education in Ghana, there is still low female enrolment in the higher levels Ghanaian teacher-training institutions. In order to increase the number of females in these institutions, the Teacher Education Division of the Ghana Education Service introduced the access course. However, there is no information on how tutors and students of the Northern Training Colleges perceive this access course. The objective of this study was therefore to find out how tutors and students, including those admitted through the access course perceive the access course.
The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. All seven colleges in Northern Ghana were used. Purposive and random sampling techniques were used to select the sub-samples from each college. Three sets of questionnaire were used to collect data from the three categories of respondents. The data was computed in frequencies and percentages. A two-tailed independent sample t-test was used to compare means of different categories of respondents.
The study showed that tutors and direct entry students had a positive opinion towards the objective of the access course and the access entry students. They were also satisfied with the course content. The access students themselves had a positive self-perception. Even though they faced settling-in challenges in their first year at the college, they were able to adjust later.
The study recommends that in order to reduce settling in problems faced by access students, the teacher education authorities should ensure that the access students report to college at the same time with their direct entry colleagues.
