Prof. Acquah, Sakina

Prof. Sakina Acquah is a Science Educator with over 30 years of teaching and research experience. She has taught at all levels of education in Ghana except the secondary school level.  She began her elementary education at the Accra New Town Experimental and continued at the 37 Military Hospital model school.  She obtained her secondary level and teacher training education from the Apam Secondary School and the Presbyterian Training College respectively.

She taught Integrated Science, Technical Drawing and Technical Skills at the Labone Junior High School (JHS), Madina and Dansoman 4 J H S after completing the teacher training college. She proceeded to the University College of Education, Winneba for her tertiary education and graduated with a second-class upper honours degree in Biology and Integrated Science Education in 1999. After completion, she was posted to the Presbyterian Training College (her alma mater) to teach science-related courses.

After two years of teaching at Presbyterian Training College, she was awarded a scholarship by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to study at the Naruto University of Education, Japan where she obtained her M. Phil Degree in Science Education. In April 2004, Prof. Sakina Acquah returned to the Presbyterian College of Education to teach science-related courses and ICT for four years. During this period, she also served as a Science Resource Person for organising workshops for basic school teachers with the GES & GTZ foundation, the GES & JICA STM project, and the Akuapem North District Teacher Support Team.

In 2008, Prof. Acquah was employed by the University of Education, Winneba to teach science-related courses at the Department of Basic Education. Later, she gained admission to read her Ph.D in Science Education with the Faculty of Science Education, University of Education, Winneba, and graduated in 2018. In 2020, she was promoted to the rank of associate professor in Science Education.

At the University of Education, Winneba, she has held many positions. Some of the positions she has held include; Academic Counsellor at the Department of Basic Education, Coordinator at the HIV & AIDS Unit, the Head of the Department of Basic Education, Dean of the erstwhile Faculty of Educational Studies and currently, the head, of the Department of Basic Education under the School of Education and Life Long Learning.  She has also served and still serves on several University-wide Boards and Committees such as the Academic Board of UEW, the Academic Board Sub-Committee to develop Staff Development policy, UEW Committee that designed the trimester sandwich programme for private school teachers in Ghana, UEW Development Committee, Academic Board Sub-Committee for revamping the Externally Funded Project Office, Databank Leadership Excellence Award Committee, UEW Chaplaincy Committee, Faculty of Educational Studies Board, UEW Finance Committee among many others.

In 2011, Prof. Sakina Acquah was awarded a Japan Student Service Organization (JASSO) Fellowship which took her to Japan for 90 days.  She has also won four research grants for UEW. These are the Ghana Institute for the Future of Teaching and Education (GIFTED) Project- a partnership between UEW, Mujeres Por Africa Foundation, University of Minnesota and New York University under the sponsorship of Banco Santander, the Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa (ERNWACA) grant, Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan African Grant for versioning and implementing the TESSA Secondary Science Open Educational Resources in Winneba, and the GRC-2023 Innovation in Visualization Grants program supported by NASA. She has served as the principal investigator in three of these research projects. Currently, she is the co-principal investigator for the GRC-2023 Innovation in Visualization Grant working on a project titled ‘Comparing Self-Assessed and Applied Competencies to Inform Building K-12 Educator Data Literacy’

Due to her meticulous work ethic, Prof. Sakina Acquah with support from ITECPD and the past deans of the Faculty of Educational Studies led the Department of Basic Education to successfully implement the new Bachelor of Education in Basic Education Curriculum in UEW. In 2021, She was nominated by the Vice Chancellor to serve as UEW’s Representative on the Methodist College of Education Council.

Prof. Sakina Acquah has authored and co-authored over thirty (30) scholarly works in international and local peer-reviewed journals and contributed to knowledge in her area of specialization.