Continuous Professional Development for Public School Teachers: Benefits and Concerns

Teacher continuous professional development (CPD) is an issue for stakeholders of education. Consequently, stakeholders of education have been expending a lot to ensure that teachers continuously and incessantly enjoy this sort of training in varied forms. CPD has been introduced in response to the growing need for 21st century skills and knowledge for teachers to be able to train learners for the new era‘s social and job market demands. Research has also been executed to study varied aspects of CPD programmmes and activities provided for teachers to unearth how beneficial they have been to patrons. This study was conducted to garner more ideas about CPD and to deepen the understanding on how it is faring in Ghanaian senior high schools. The quantitative study made use of descriptive survey design to guide the conduct of the study. A sample of 117 teachers who met the inclusion criteria were randomly selected to participate in the study. The sample size constituted a return rate of 92.3%. Questionnaire was developed and used to gather data from respondents who had participated in a number of CPDs. The instrument aided soliciting data on the benefits of the programmes as well as the concerns the participants had about the programmes. The study unveiled that continuous professional development programmes have been beneficial to the participants. The programmes have benefited them in various aspects of their work. Nonetheless, the study disclosed that the participants had concerns that, if they are well addressed by stakeholders, it would help improve the quality of subsequent programmes to immensely benefit participants and the education service. Stakeholders are urged to pay more attention to and improve on when, where, and how CPDs are organised for them to yield the desired dividends.