8.6 College Organisation for Staffing and Workloads

During the fieldwork we undertook an analytic evaluation of tutors' teaching load in two colleges, to ascertain whether the much referred-to impact of teaching load on instructional practice reflects lack of management efficiency or was an incontrovertible college organisational problem. The teaching loads of tutors in two of the study colleges, WTC and ATC, are discussed in more detail. The distribution of students on each of the programmes in the two colleges used for this analysis is shown in Table 8.1.

The overall staff student ratio is as follows: WTC - 1:15, ATC - 1:21. WTC and ATC run slightly different programmes

Table 8.1: Tutors and Student Distribution by Number in Each Programme for 1999/2000

(Notes: *Number of tutors excludes Principals of the colleges; GTTP - General Teacher Training Programme, PTP - Primary Training Programme, SSP - Subject Specialist Programme)

8.6.1 Official Teaching Load

The Ghana Ministry of Education (MOE) policy on staff recruitment stipulates that staff-student ratio should be 1:15 and in addition tutors should teach between 32 - 36 periods a week (a teaching period is equivalent to 40 minutes). It is believed that this arrangement allows for more effective and efficient management and delivery of curriculum in the training colleges. Based upon this policy, ATC has a high staff-student ratio 1:21 and WTC a ratio of 1:15 which satisfies the official requirement.

If one makes the assumption that a tutor teaches different student groups of 15 for each period, the following results can be deduced. For a staff-student ratio of 1:15, then a tutor has to be in classroom teaching contact with a minimum of 480 students (15 students per period x 32 periods) and a maximum of 540 students (15 students per period x 36 periods) a week. This actually results in an official teaching load in student-hour terms ranging from 320 per week to a maximum of 360 student-hours per week². What is the actual teaching load in the colleges and how do they compare with the official figures?

² Student-hours appears to provide a better picture of workload. Each period of 40 minutes for a 32 or 36 period schedule works out to be a minimum of 21.3 contact hours and a maximum of 24 contact hours respectively. In student-hours terms this is between 320 - 360. (i.e. 21.3 x 15) Therefore the higher the value of student-hours the greater the work load because of the number of students to deal with and its implications for the organisational demands of student learning.

8.6.2 WTC

Using actual teaching loads data and following similar calculations it is seen that the average teaching load in student-hours for WTC is 458. The estimated contact time with students is 12, the average number of periods per week is 17 (ranges from 3 -18) and, on the average a tutor is engaged in teaching in a week 278 student teachers. Thus, although WTC tutor-student ratio falls within the MOE stipulated figure, it appears that a tutor in this college has a bigger teaching load. However, the number of periods suggest that tutors have much fewer periods than the expected MOE figure and teach on average a student class size of 40.

The real picture emerging from an analysis of individual teaching load reveals that some tutors carry heavier teaching loads than other tutors do. In effect, the teaching of such large class sizes, and often different level classes (almost all tutors teach both students in the first and second years and therefore have at least two different group levels to teach) has workload implications. To provide, manage and monitor professional learning, using a wide and varied range of instructional strategies will make extra demands on the tutors' time and effort.

Further analysis reveals that even though tutors in WTC do not make the minimum MOE teaching requirement of 21 hours a week (on the average they make 12 hours), 71% of them have teaching loads above the maximum requirement of 360 student-hours a week. The teaching loads of WTC are plagued with inefficiencies in the number of periods allotted to tutors as well as the number of tutors engaged to teach. For, example, in the social studies department increasing the number of tutors from the current 2 to 3 reduces contact period from 23 hours to 15.5 hours. In order to reduce such teaching loads, classes must either be combined or more tutors engaged to teach social studies. The disadvantage of combining classes is that the lecture method comes to be regarded as more attractive and where learning experiences being developed do not lend themselves to that approach, then it undermines effective learning to teach.

Figure 8.1 below shows the staff teaching loads in terms of contact hours and student teaching hours delivered by the teaching staff (excluding the Principal and Vice-Principals) in the subjects offered in WTC.

Figure 8.1: Teaching load in student hours by staff member

8.6.3 ATC

In ATC none of the tutors is able to meet the MOE minimum teaching load of 32 periods a week. Also ATC's tutor-student ratio exceeds the official requirement.

Figure 8.2 below shows the staff teaching loads in terms of contact hours and student teaching hours delivered by the teaching staff (excluding the Principal and Vice-Principals) in the subjects offered in ATC.

The actual teaching load analysis for ATC reveals the following information. The number of student teachers a tutor is in contact with in a week ranges from 51 to 736. The average is 363 student teachers a week, a figure much higher than that of WTC. Tutors teach on average 7 classes in a week and most likely at least at two different levels. The average class size is 52. The teaching load in student hours a week of 614 is considerably higher than WTC. By the MOE requirements however, ATC tutors do not have sufficient student contact hours. On average it is 12 hours (MOE minimum based on a staff-student ratio of 1:15 is 21 hours). However, in actual contact hour terms the majority have teaching loads far above the maximum of 360 student-hours a week (71% in WTC and 97% in ATC). This means that the majority does indeed have a heavy workload when this is viewed in student-hour terms.

Figure 8.2: Teaching load in student-hours by staff member

(Notes: E6 belongs to two different departments; E1 and M6 are Vice-Principals of the College)

8.6.4 Some policy implications

Recruitment of staff is done exclusively by the Principal of a College whose only guiding rule is to keep within the officially recommended staff-student ratio of 1:15. This leads to situations where some departments are understaffed and overburdened whilst others are overstaffed and under-utilised. For example, although WTC has the full complement of staff (using the 1:15) ratio, the Social Studies department has only two tutors teaching a total of 70 periods a week, whereas the Science department has five tutors teaching a total of 48 periods a week. The Physical Education department has three tutors sharing a total of 27 periods a week. It would appear from the analysis of teaching load in the two colleges that the problems emanate from both organisational and curriculum demand and that both policy-makers and college administrators have a role to play in improving the situation.

Issues about staff-tutor ratio and tutors' workload are complex and their resolution may not be simple as they raise a lot of challenges that touch on policy, politics and practice. Nevertheless, any serious attempt to improve curriculum delivery so as to yield positive professional learning outcomes will need to face the challenges it presents. Certainly more research into this is required, particularly analysing data from all the 38 teachers' training colleges in Ghana to see the patterns that emerge, which colleges are managing better and why. Even more useful will be to undertake a comparative analysis of different models of staff-student ratios based on scenarios of the ideal and typical.

The issue of tutors' efficiency and effectiveness in delivering the curriculum cannot be detached from the issue of teaching load and its implications. For example, forms of assessment such as short essays, group/individual reports, term papers, and projects, which reflect the wide range of professional learning experiences, that training would want to foster, would be very difficult to achieve. Again, the large numbers of students as well as the possibly different classes tutors teach makes it difficult for more one-to-one or small group learning situations to be encouraged.