School Effectiveness in Ghanaian Teacher Education Colleges: The Role of Internal Stakeholder Collaboration

Abstract

Collaboration in educational institutions has become a competent vehicle for accomplishing set objectives. Collaborations are therefore the styles educators use when they work with other people to achieve shared goals. Against this background, this study sought to explore internal stakeholders’ collaborations in the school effectiveness of two teacher education colleges in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The study employed the convergent parallel mixed-method design otherwise called concurrent mixed-method design. The population for the study comprised second and third-year students, tutors, and leadership of the colleges. A sample size of three hundred and eight (308) was used in this study. The simple random sampling technique was used to draw both second-year students and tutors, the cluster sampling technique was also used to cluster the population of the third-year students, and the simple random sampling technique was then subsequently used to draw students who were out in the field for their teaching practice. The intensity case sampling technique was also used in sampling the school leadership. The breakdown is two hundred and fifty-seven (257) students in all, forty-one (41) tutors, and ten (10) leaders of the colleges. Two instruments namely an in-depth interview guide and a questionnaire were used to elicit responses to address the two research questions that guided the study.  The interview guide gathered responses from college leadership and the questionnaire was administered to both students and tutors. The study revealed that various types of collaborations exist among the internal publics in the colleges in the promotion of school effectiveness. Regardless, the colleges also face some challenges such as inadequate infrastructure and funding, inadequate relevant curricular materials as well as poor internet connectivity among others. The study thus recommends among others that college authorities should continue to engage students and staff in the governance and management of their respective colleges and also expand the frontiers of the existing collaborations among internal publics of the colleges to include that of their external stakeholders. Secondly, college authorities, lobby for funding from the government through the Ghana Education Trust Fund and some development partners to ease the financial burden of the colleges and to help them build more infrastructures for academic and residential purposes. Furthermore, the college management should liaise with the education ministry and the traditional public universities that these colleges are affiliated with for assistance regarding relevant textbooks and academic journals in the various disciplines. Again, authorities should engage with the telecommunication companies in the country through some memoranda of understanding for assistance to boost internet connectivity in the colleges.