Abstract
Professional development is critical in the life of every organization in positioning workers to meet changing trends of globalization. This study seeks to look at a critical analysis of the challenges facing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) of academic staff of the colleges of education in Ghana. The exploratory, descriptive and evaluative case study approach that combined both qualitative and quantitative methods were used which basically adopted the questionnaire and the interview schedule in the collection of data. The census and the purposive sampling techniques were used in collecting data from 364 respondents constituting tutors, Human Resource Management and Development (HRMD) committee members and chairpersons, vice-principals and quality assurance officers. Primary data collected through the instruments used were analysed using the mean and standard deviation techniques. Text analyses were also done for the interview schedule data. The results of the study revealed that colleges of education do not maximise the full potential of benefits that accrue from CPD programmes due to some profound challenges such as lack of a systematic and comprehensive training needs analysis and weak interaction between the institution seeking the training and the institution providing the training. The study recommended that CPD programme be linked to the learning needs analysis and integration of knowledge with everyday practice. Management of colleges of education must endeavor to have an appraisal system linked to personal development planning of tutors. Key words: Challenges, continuing professional development, colleges of education, training, development.
Highlights
Professional development is critical in the life of every organization in positioning its human resources to meet changing trends of globalization
These are achieved through adoption of systematic approach to training and development (T&D) of staff which invariably per its orientation has metamorphosed to a new concept currently referred to as continuing professional development (CPD)
Criteria used by colleges of education (CoEs) in selecting staff for training
Summary
Professional development is critical in the life of every organization in positioning its human resources to meet changing trends of globalization. It can be deduced from many reports that the competitive strength of companies, social organisations and countries are no longer strictly tied to physical assets or resources, but to the intellectual attributes of their knowledge workers This was confirmed by Dixon and Hamilton (1996) when they upheld from their analysis that HR constitutes between 40 and 80% of wealth worldwide while natural resources are only a little more than 10% of wealth in most parts of the developing world. The argument is that after expending a considerable outlay of the organisation‟s efforts to obtain suitable employees, works that organisations have to do are to ensure that human resources are maintained, refined and utilised These are achieved through adoption of systematic approach to training and development (T&D) of staff which invariably per its orientation has metamorphosed to a new concept currently referred to as continuing professional development (CPD). The need for such approach emanates from the fact that survival and growth of organisations in a constantly changing and increasingly complex environment depends on the existence of observed and nurtured knowledge and skills
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