Faculty: Education
Program: Master of Science Education
Year: 2019
Country: Ghana
Kofi is a hardworking, intelligent, passionate and self-disciplined person. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Science Education from the University of Education, Winneba in Ghana. Having being touched by his own experience growing up and studying in rural areas with limited to no learning resources and a shortage of trained teachers, he took it upon himself to support other students in similar disadvantaged situations. After graduating from the teacher education program, he formed a group called “Science Teachers for Rural Areas” with support from like-minded colleagues. Every weekend, they travelled to school districts in rural communities to organize workshops and teaching outreach programs for untrained science teachers and also offer remedial science and mathematics lessons for students in these deprived areas. These workshops were meant to offer pedagogical strategies and ways teachers could improvise science teaching materials using resources readily available in the local environment in place of more sophisticated science materials or equipment which are usually not available or too expensive to purchase.
Unfortunately, Ghanaian students in rural areas have long been victims of shortage of science teachers and learning resources. Kofi’s desire to pursue a Masters in Science Education would be a step towards bridging the human resource gap. He intends to collaborate with Ghana education services to establish a non-for-profit science learning center to offer workshops and training to teachers in rural areas, who mostly do not have a college education diploma. Kofi is thrilled to be part of UBC’s multicultural community, to share his experience with peers and learn from them. For him, it is a great privilege and honor to be given the opportunity to study at UBC and in a beautiful city like Vancouver located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam People.