Travel distance, transportation costs and students’ evaluation of supported teaching in school within a college of education in Ghana

Supported Teaching in School (STS) was instituted to give student teachers the opportunity to develop their competence in the classroom. This article analyses the travel distance, transportation costs, and students’ evaluation of the role of stakeholders in the STS. Using questionnaires and focus group discussions, data was collected from 282 students of the Seventh-day Adventist College of Education, Agona-Ashanti. A stratified random sampling procedure was adopted. Frequency tables and inferential statistics in IBM SPSS (version 25) and Microsoft Word were used to analyse quantitative data. Thematic network analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. The results show that the average weekly distance travelled by students from the college to the partner schools from level 100 to level 300 was 4.734 km; thus, 9.468 km per week for a return journey. The frequency at which students engaged in STS in nearby schools was higher compared to the remote schools. Students’ overall rating of the college in the organisation of the STS did not significantly differ with reference to gender (p > .05). Spending on a trip for STS was a financial restraint. The provision of means of transportation to the colleges of education is critical to easing the burden of transportation on students.