According to a report that went viral in the early hours of Friday June 3 2022, a teacher trainee on teaching practice posted to the Asokore Mampong Municipality in the Ashanti Region had impregnated 24 female students, a headmistress and 4 female teachers.
The story was published by one Sir Obed Fieve of voltawebpage.com and a few minutes later, it went viral and even caught the attention of the international media.
A section of Ghanaians took to social media to bastardize teachers and describe them as unprofessional public sector workers.
Some teachers were not happy about the bad tag and image being attached to their profession as they believed that the publication is an indictment on the teaching profession and must be investigated by the Teacher Unions and the Law enforcement Agencies.
In an earlier publication, the immediate past National Coordinator of the Teacher Trainees’ Association of Ghana (TTAG), Joshua Owusu Yeboah called on teacher unions to call for the arrest of the publisher of a story trending on social media against their noble teaching profession.
He cited the fact that the arrest of the publisher will go a long way to redeem and restore the integrity of teachers and the teaching profession at large, since the said story indicated that, a headmistress and four other female teachers were impregnated by a practicing teacher trainee.
Meanwhile, several fact checks have indicated that the publication from voltawebpage.com and republished by several other online news portals can not be true after a disclaimer was issued by Asokore Mampong Municipal Education Directorate, stating clearly that, nothing like that has happened in the Municipality.
Fake publication Fact-checks
1. In the first place, checks by depunch.com with an official of the Ghana Education Service revealed that teacher trainees in one college are not posted to do macro teaching (teaching practice/out programme) outside their mother region, unless probably the College is situated at the boundary between two regions where the STS Unit can decide to post students to schools outside the region of the college. Even in that case, proximity to the college of education is highly considered.
2. Further checks revealed that teacher trainees do observation whilst in level 100 and 200 in Basic schools within the District/Municipal/Metropolitan of their College or districts close to the mother district of the college of education within the same Region.
3. The Supported Teaching in Schools (STS) Unit in each college may assign teacher trainees to continue their observation at home (a school of their choice which may be outside the District and Region of their College). This is different from Teaching Practice (as in Macro Teaching).
4. “While in level 300, the teacher trainees are posted to schools by the College’s STS Unit to take partial control of the classroom while in College. In level 400, the students are again posted by the same STS Unit to schools within the District of the College or in schools in nearby Districts of same Region closer to the College. This proximity is basically determined by the STS Unit of the College”.
5. Hence, the publication from voltawebpage.com saying a College in the Western Region had posted a teacher trainee to Asokore Mampong Municipality in the Ashanti Region to do Teaching Practice (Macro Teaching) resulting in the ground breaking viral news could never be true.
6. Simply analyzing the story would help one understand the malicious intention of the publisher. This is because, the proximity is a key factor in considering where a teacher trainee is sent to do their teaching practice.
7. Also, there is only one College of Education in the Western Region which is an all-female college of education. Before the creation of the Western North Region from the old Western Region, there were four (4) Colleges of Education in the Western Region. They include Enchi College of Education, Bia Lamplighter College of Education, Wiawso College of Education and Holy Child College of Education (Female College).
8. The Western Region (New Region) has only one College of Education (Holy Child College of Education), which happens to be an all female College of Education. This is a clear indication that, there couldn’t be any possibility of a female trainee impregnating other 24 female students, to even talk of female teachers and a headmistress.
9. Hence, there couldn’t be any possibility of a College of Education in the Western Region permitting its teacher trainees to undergo teaching practice in the Ashanti Region, as reported in the news that went viral.
10. Lastly, for the records, teacher trainees have only embarked on one teaching practice (Macro teaching) which lasted for only four months in 2021 (September 2021 to December 2021) since the introduction of the B.Ed programme in the Colleges (excluding their Supported Teaching in Schools- STS).
This is an analysis from depunch.com on why the viral news of the male teacher who was posted to do his teaching practice in the Asokore Mampong Municipality is false.