The Registrar of the Ghana National Teaching Council (GNTC), Dr. Christian Addai-Poku, has attributed the mass failures in the 2023 Ghana Teachers Licensure Examination (GTLE) to the introduction of the serialisation or items differentials.
This, he said, made it impossible for candidates who were unable to do independent work difficult to pass, because there was no room for cheating.
Briefing the media in Accra yesterday, the Registrar also mentioned Distance and Sandwich programmes as equally responsible for the mass failures, because most of the candidates who failed the exams came from these modes of training.
According to him, out of the total number of 1,736 regular candidates who sat for the exam, 353 candidates(20%) passed, whilst 1,383 candidates (80%) failed.
In the case of those from the Distance mode 5, 064 candidates sat for the exam out of which 777 candidates (15%) failed whilst 4,287 candidates (85%) failed.
Candidates who sat for the exam under the Sandwich mode of training were 795 and out of that 131 candidates (16%) passed whilst 664 candidates (84%) failed.
Online recorded 12 candidates in all and 1 candidate (8%) passed, whereas 11 candidates (92%) failed.
Dr. Addai-Poku added that, the mass failures did not come as a surprise to the Council because the examination was written by only candidates who had re-sat several times, specifically in the range of 2 to 10.
He explained that the 7, 278 candidates who sat for the 2023 GTLE 1 are a remnants of the 145,050 total number of candidates who have sat the examination from the year 2018 to 2022.
Another factor, the Registrar said, influenced the Mass Failure is the fact that candidates were not allowed to write in their respective schools where they had their lecturers look on while they bend the rules of the examination.
Judging from the examination results, “it is clear that some candidates did not fit to even enter teachers education institutions in the first place” he lamented.
I n September 2018, the GTLE was instituted as an effort from the Government to improve teachers’ professionalism and quality teaching. The examination he said served as a means of assessing how fit newly trained teachers are to enter our classrooms.
In all, the National Teaching Council has organized 10 licensure examinations, two in each year, in areas of Essential Professional Skills, Literacy and Numeracy.
The Registrar revealed that, the first nine licensure examination produced interesting statistics, a situation that aided them to relook the existing policy regarding the examination, after the tenth was written on the 4th and 5th May, 2023.
Prior to the 2021 GTLE 1, the failure rate hovered around 27%. However, the Council upon suspicion of malpractices at some of the Centers introduced some measures to deal with the situation, hence the introduction of the serialisation or item differentials in examination, and preventing candidates from writing the examinations in their institution of training to help avert collusion and copying among candidates in the examination halls.
As the measures raised the failure rate, the Ministry, through the GNTC introduced test preps to enable candidates practice a number of online questions before examination as well as Chief examiners reports to help candidates with the preparations.
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Dr. Addai-Poku stated that the Ministry is looking at a possible introduction of an entrance assessment as part of the selection process for the Teacher Education admission; strengthen its regulatory system on teachers’ education institution and to ensure that enough reading materials are available to candidates.
