Nana Afia Amponsaa Opoku-Asare

• MA, MPhil, PGD Management
• Consultant at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

There are numerous pedagogical strategies for teaching and learning but the effective ones that can bolster student learning abilities in General Knowledge in Art (GKA) have been shelved by senior high school teachers in Sekondi-Takoradi. Using the mixed methods research design, questionnaires and interviews were used to gather data from a sample s...

The study examined the effects of high teacher turnover on academic performance of students in the Sekyere Afram Plains district of Ghana as a case study. To understand the causal factors of turnover among teachers in Sekyere Afram Plains district, we employed the quantitative research design to gather descriptive data on teacher turnover from a pu...

Many teachers refuse posting to rural schools in Ghana because they are not willing to live in rural areas. This denies rural schools of teachers who could teach to raise student achievement, particularly in the West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination, which qualifies senior high school (SHS) graduates for higher education in Ghana. To...

The education system recognises the positive impact of induction on the retention and professional growth of Newly Qualified Teachers in Ghana. This points out the question of how teacher induction programmes should be planned, organised and implemented, and what it should entail. The study sought to examine the forms and strategies of induction pr...

The linguistic and cognitive importance of early language exposure for deaf children is well reported in the literature. However, most of such studies have been conducted in industrialized countries with less of such studies conducted in developing and nonindustrialized countries such as Ghana. Therefore, hinged on the social interactionist theory...

Learning disabilities do not occur in isolation but as a result of certain environmental factors such as school, class, and home with various underlining conditions which immensely present barriers to students learning. The study, therefore, employed a triangulation mixed research approach with a questionnaire, observation, and focus group discussi...

Pre-school prepares children with the requisite skills and competencies necessary for formal education. It provides parents with productive time for their work while their children are being cared for in kindergartens, day-care centers, crèches, and pre-schools where children are provided opportunities for stimulation and holistic development using...

p>The education system recognises the positive impact of induction on the retention and professional growth of Newly Qualified Teachers in Ghana. This points out the question of how teacher induction programmes should be planned, organised and implemented, and what it should entail. The study sought to examine the forms and strategies of induction...

The research looked at the illuminatingly obscure nature of the proverb related to the people of AnhwiaNsensanso in the Kwabere East District of Asante. A descriptive survey of ten selected Asante proverbs was used. The purpose of the study was to use AhwiaNsensanso as a case study to examine how the proverb is humorously illuminating, yet insulti...

Instructional resources usage is an assessed component of teaching practice in Ghana's Colleges of Education. However, only student-teachers in Visual Arts departments acquire skills in instructional resources development for teaching practice. To equip student-teachers on the 3-year Diploma in Basic Education programme in Offinso College of Educat...

The purpose of this research was to explore waste materials and turn them into appropriate instructional resources for teaching art lessons in Ghana. This was necessary because primary, junior and senior high school art teachers in Ghana mostly teach their lessons without using instructional resources because of non-provision of instructional resou...

Teaching and learning in Ghana’s Senior High Schools (SHSs) are guided by a centralized curriculum, teaching syllabus, textbooks, assessment criteria, and examinations, yet rural–urban disparities exist in educational resources provision, which significantly affect teaching and learning processes and student achievement in the SHSs, particularly th...

The study examines the use of waste materials as instructional resources in teaching and learning Art lessons. Primary, Junior and Senior High School Art teachers in Ghana mostly teach their lessons without instructional resources because the government is not able to provide materials to create the needed resources. The study therefore explored lo...

This paper primarily discusses the challenges deaf students in Ghana are likely to grapple with as they access education provided for them in English language. The arguments discussed in this paper are supported by findings from a multiple site case study of five Schools for the Deaf purposively sampled from four regions of Ghana. Observations were...

Rural–urban disparity in economic and social development in Ghana has led to disparities in educational resources and variations in students’ achievement in different parts of the country. Nonetheless, senior high schools (SHSs) in rural and urban schools follow the same curriculum, and their students write the same West Africa Senior Secondary Cer...

Verbal and non-verbal interactions that occur daily between teachers and headteachers, teachers and pupils, and among pupils can generate conflict that may adversely affect teaching, learning, and schooling effectiveness. Little attention is, however, paid to the quality of relationships that exists between teachers and pupils, among teachers, amon...

Although various forms of art are prominent in the Asante culture, the performing and visual arts make a particularly vibrant and far-reaching contribution. This study has used a qualitative research approach, relying mainly on observations and interviews, to focus on the role of the performing and visual arts in Asante traditional politics. The re...

Sirigu is a major artistic community in the upper east region of Ghana; its decorative murals have attracted admiration globally. Besides wall paintings, Sirigu women also produce a variety of pottery for domestic, religious and commercial purposes. Although much valued, not much is known about their pottery. This research has studied the raw mater...

Senior High School (SHS) students in Ghana are required to pass all core and elective curricula subjects in the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) to qualify for higher education. Unfortunately, many Visual Arts students perform poorly or fail in English, Mathematics, Integrated Science and Social Studies, which constitute t...

The Publishing Studies department of Faculty of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana, offers graduate training in three career paths: Book Design and Illustration (BDI), Printing Technology and Management as well as Publishing Administration. A survey of 555 students in Years 1-4 revealed a skewed distribution of 4...

Recycling to produce new products out of waste materials is not a regular feature of school art programmes in Ghana. A previous quasi-experimental recycling project revealed the possibility of using pulp waste fabrics and paper mulberry fibre to produce good quality art paper suitable for teaching and learning of drawing, painting, stitching, colou...

Recycling to produce new products out of waste materials is not a regular feature of school art programmes in Ghana. A previous quasi-experimental recycling project revealed the possibility of using pulp waste fabrics and paper mulberry fibre to produce good quality art paper suitable for teaching and learning of drawing, painting, stitching, colou...

Natural dyes from plant, animal and mineral sources have been used for centuries across the world. This study however, describes art studio quasi experiments conducted with the leaves, barks, seeds, roots, and fruit pods of 21 local plants to ascertain their potential for yielding dyes that would colour cotton fabrics and withstand frequent launder...

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Available Online April 2014 Women in society perform several vital roles which can be categorized into three (3). These are reproductive, productive or economic, and community management. Although this study does appreciate all these forms of important roles played by women in society, it seeks specifically to find out the eco...

Asante Kente is a richly coloured, intricately patterned indigenous hand woven fabric that is typically produced at Bonwire and Adanwomase in Ashanti Region, Ghana. Kente is woven in long narrow strips with brightly coloured silk or cotton yarns on Nsadua Kofi, the traditional narrow loom, which is a box-like wooden structure in which the weaver si...

General Knowledge in Art (GKA) is a core subject for Visual Arts students in Ghana's Senior High Schools but an elective for Home Economics students. Unlike Textiles, Ceramics and allied Visual Arts subjects which are taught by specialist teachers, GKA has no specialist teachers: all Visual Arts teacher are deemed competent to effectively deliver t...

Indigenous hand weaving is an ancient traditional handicraft practised in many cultures across Africa, Asia, Middle East, Europe and Latin America. The looms and accessories are made from local materials and the mechanism for their operation involves simple technologies that are easy to learn. These traditional hand weaving looms mostly produce lon...

This article reports on a mural painting project meant to document indiscriminate waste disposal, felling of trees, burning of car tyres, and pollution of water bodies at Offinso, Ghana, as a permanent exhibition for public education on environmental degradation. Community ownership for protecting the murals was assured by involving local students...

Asante Kente designs consist of dots, lines, shapes, textures and colours that are carefully crafted to form a variety of geometric shapes and intricate patterns that exhibit balance, rhythm, variety, proportion and repetition. The indigenous Asante Kente fabric of Ghana is woven in long, narrow strips on traditional looms using brightly coloured s...

Students who are deaf typically lack the language of the hearing, even in written form. This hearing handicap presents serious academic challenges that require visual teaching strategies. Nonetheless, it is not clear whether visual teaching is practised in the various Schools for the Deaf hence the need to investigate its practice in the Schools fo...

In Ghana, art paper is imported, expensive and often inaccessible to students in some communities for lack of suppliers or funding. High costs prevent many Visual Arts teachers from assigning enough practice exercises that could help their students to master a variety of art mediums. The challenge therefore was to explore the possibility of recycli...

This art studio experimental study explored the suitability of woven cotton fabric as alternative material for creating pictorial designs for murals based on the batik, tie-and-dye, screen printing, appliqué and embroidery techniques in textiles. While painted and sculpted murals abound in Ghana, the study found textile murals a seemingly unknown a...

The study sought to examine girls’ motivation for and subject preferences on the Senior High School Visual Arts programme in Ghana. Using findings based on the multi-site case study research method with direct observation and interviews, the study found that 54% of 300 girls in four schools in the Central Region made personal decisions to study Vis...

Although mural art, unlike pottery, is not widely practised by African women, the predominantly female art known as ‘Bambolse’ in the indigenous language of Sirigu, in the Upper East Region of Ghana, performs a number of important social functions, from adornment and communication to the assertion of cultural identity and the preservation of tradit...

This study adopted the qualitative research approach involving observation and interviewing to examine the policy and practice of school inspection in the Ghanaian basic school system. The study revealed that inspection is an integral part of Ghana's educational system. It emerged that the system of monitoring schools is governed by an “evolving” p...

This study adopted the qualitative research approach to identify, describe and explain the underlying issues pertaining to how Ghanaian primary school teachers use non-book instructional materials to achieve the curriculum objectives outlined in the lessons they teach and whether this is significantly affected by the nature and date of teacher trai...