Alhaji Issahaque Salia, Upper West Regional Minister, has appealed to tutors of Training Colleges of Education to turn out products who would teach and inspire children into critical thinking to maximize their potentials.
He said the practice where teachers fed children with what to think about was killing creativity and should be discouraged.
He said a teacher's purpose was not to create students in his or her own image, but to develop students who could create their own image.
Alhaji Salia made the appeal at the inauguration of Interim Governing Councils for the Nursat Jahan Ahmadiyya and Tumu Training Colleges of Education in Wa on Tuesday.
He tasked educational training institutions to equip teacher trainees with skills that would encourage the unearthing of creativity as well as those that connect classroom knowledge to the practical world.
"I would like to suggest for brainstorming, the need to use the 'Montessori Curriculum' type of teaching; which stimulates self-learning and creativity at the foundation levels of our education", Alhaji Salia said.
The Regional Minister identified Colleges of Education as the live wire of education and must be made to function at optional levels for societal development.
He noted that despite the challenges confronting the educational sector, those could be addressed through effective training and positioning of the teacher to be able to give out his or her best.
"The success in our educational sector would automatically translate into meaningful development of society."
Alhaji Salia called for the establishment of more technical and vocational training institutions as well as the provision of logistics to support their products to help produce basic necessities of life, add value to raw materials and in the process provide jobs for the unemployed.
The Regional Minister tasked members of the Councils to align the curricula of the two training institutions with the new status of College of Education.
Mr. Yeboah Druye Collins, Principal, Nursat Jahan Ahmadiyya Training College of Education, in his welcoming address, said colleges were losing their best tutors to the other tertiary institutions which offer better conditions of service.
He appealed to the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) to come up with a new salary scale to help retain tutors in the colleges.
Mr Collins called for the extension and expansion of infrastructural facilities at Training Colleges of Education, because "if we want to succeed as a nation, we should treat the producers of our nation's manpower resources well but not with mere lip service.
The Principal called for the passage of the College of Education Bill to support the new status.
Mr. Collins said the two colleges did not adequate accommodation for male students and staff as well as administrative offices while they also share their facilities with animals and called for the provision of fence walls to secure the life and property.
Professor Stephen B. Kendie, a spokesman for members of the Councils, called for the provision of well stocked libraries to enable students improve on their academic works.
He said most colleges have inadequate library facilities and poor reading materials which were hindrance to the provision of quality education.
The 26 member Interim Governing Council has Professor Stephen B. Kendie as chairman for the Tumu College of Education and Mr. A.S. Moomin, Chairman for the Nursat Jahan Ahmadiyya College of Education.