Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate factors influencing male teacher trainees’
career choice for ECE at Colleges of Education in the Upper West Region. The study
employed descriptive survey design with quantitative approach. Using census
technique, a sample size of 160 male teacher trainees was chosen for the study (with a
return rate of 98.7%). A self-designed questionnaire was used to collect data. The data
collected were analysed using descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages,
means and standard deviations). The study’s findings indicated that family, personal,
peers, and outcome expectation factors influence the career choice of male teacher
trainees for ECE in the Upper West Region. The results also show that if governments
and other relevant stakeholders implement strategies like giving young men the
opportunity to work with children, giving men who enter the early childhood field a
motivational allowance, media campaigns, giving men preference when employing
teachers for ECE, teacher education programmes increasing the quota for male
applicants for ECE programmes, subsidising the cost of ECE programmes, among
others, more young men will enter the field. It was recommended that the
government, through the Ministry of Education (MOE), reconsider teacher
remuneration and other working conditions in order to recruit and retain more
teachers in general, and specifically male ECE instructors.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Early Childhood Education,
Faculty of Educational Studies, submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Early Childhood Education)
in the University of Education, Winneba
