The National Teaching Council is mandated by Section 9 of the Education Act, 2008 (Act 778) to improve the professional standing and status of teachers, license and register teachers in Ghana.
As a result the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination was introduced in 2018, with the aim of ensuring that prospective teachers after graduating from the teacher education institutions were filtered through the license exams.
The examination’s dual goals are to enable qualified teachers to obtain a professional license and also to draw in outstanding young graduates from universities and colleges of education who possess the knowledge, abilities, and attitudes necessary to work effectively in classrooms.
The Chronicle is, however, concerned about the high failure rate, of the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination since its introduction. The latest mass failure recorded at the exam is startling.
Out of 7,728 prospective teachers who sat again for the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) last month, 1,277 passed. The figure represents 16.5 per cent of the candidates who sat again for the examination, introduced to license teaching practitioners.
The Chronicle is happy that teacher unions in the country are already up in arms and are in a crunch meeting over the mass failure recorded by the prospective teachers. According to the Vice President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Jacob Anaba, the meeting is meant to allow the unions to deliberate on the possible factors accounting for the mass failure.
The Chronicle also fully agrees with the Public Relations Officer of the National Teaching Council (NTC), Dennis Osei-Owusu, who said the high failure rate in the 2023 Teacher Licensure Examination is a “national security threat” and cause for concern.
This is because we are talking about teachers who are being trained to come and train our future generation and leaders, yet basic literacy and numeracy test is a problem for them.
The minority in parliament have also waded into the discussion by urging the Education Committee of Parliament to summon multiple stakeholders within the education sector to address the issue of widespread failure among teachers in the 2023 licensure examination resit.
The Minority says the National Teaching Council, various Colleges of Education and their affiliates, and the Ghana Education Service ought to brief the Committee on the underlying factors contributing to the failure of the teachers.
As a nation, we must pay close attention to this issue to salvage the future of our young generation. The exam is based on three areas; numeracy, literacy, and essential skills.
So teachers who are going to schools to teach must be conversant with them. The mass failure clearly shows that some of the prospective teachers might just be passing through the teaching profession to aim at other ‘well paying’ careers.
Already students are not performing well in WASSCE and BECE examinations over the past years. Teachers are a contributing factor to these challenges. This is why the Chronicle thinks that the government has to increase teacher motivation to attract quality materials into the profession.
Teacher motivation has been very poor for some time now and improving this will go a long way to attract more qualified teachers to raise the quality of education in schools.
