Creative Arts In Crisis

Many schools in Ghana depend mostly on generalist teachers for Creative Arts instruction at the primary level yet we know little about these teachers, their preparation before teaching, and what they actually do in the classroom when teaching the Creative Arts. Previously, the extant literature in this area had focused primarily on boosting generalist teachers’ confidence to teach Creative Arts but in recent years, studies by Eisner (1997), Wiggins and Wiggins (2008), Alter, Hays and O’Hara (2009) have revealed that many of the Creative Arts teachers lack the requisite skills, the understanding, knowledge, and confidence to teach this subject simply because they are generalist teachers. This study employed the qualitative research method to identify and describe the actual classroom teaching and learning of the Creative Arts in 10 selected public primary schools in Kumasi, Ghana. The outcome is meant to establish the link between teacher professional development, experience, actual classroom teaching and its impact on the learning of the Creative Arts. This study revealed that there are virtually no specialist trained art teachers in the primary schools to teach the Creative Arts.