Mr Emmanuel Kingsley Osei, Principal of the

Presbyterian College of Education (PCE) has appealed to government to

increase the quota of students enrolled to the teacher training colleges in order

to "step up" the number of teachers produced.
"This low intake is affecting the smooth running of the colleges, we have

classrooms without teachers yet we are not training more teachers."
According to Mr Osei, the PCE, known as the "mother of schools," had

the capacity to enrol at least five hundred students yet because of the quota

system, only 321 students were allowed into the college last year.
He was speaking at the graduation ceremony for 365 graduands, who had

successfully gone through a three year diploma course in education programme

from the college at Akropong-Akuapem on Saturday.
Mr Osei noted for example that, the PCE had a whole classroom block, a

girl's dormitory and other facilities lying idle because the student population

was small and therefore appealed to government to have a second look at the

system to ensure that those facilities were not left to rot.
He said he was particularly worried with the girls dormitory that was lying

idle whiles many girls were looking for the opportunity to enter training colleges

adding that "female teachers serves as role models for the communities and so

its unfortunate that we have the capacity yet we cannot enrol them".
Mr Osei also called on government to fully equip all training colleges with

Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) and internet services at the

laboratories to equip the teachers at the basic schools.
He reminded the graduands of the hard work and training they had gone

through and urged them to be ambassadors of the Presbyterian discipline

because the school "would not hesitate to call you back for training when you

perform below expectation".
Three students had second class upper, 45 had second class lower, 166

had third class, 99 had pass, whiles 52 of the graduands were awaiting results.
The college Permanent Senior of the School, Mr Newton Bordor on behalf

of the graduands said their three year stay in the school had been characterized

by the proverbial Presbyterian discipline, which is hard work and Godliness.
He thanked the Principal, who he described as not only the head of the

school but a father to all and assured him that they would make a difference in

the teaching field.