The Education Ministry has set up a seven-member committee to investigate the poor performance of teachers who wrote the licensure examination.
The committee is also to recommend appropriate measures to curb the challenge.
Speaking in Accra on measures being put in place, the Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum said the committee will among other things ensure that prep materials are made available to candidates who will take the exams.
“The committee is looking at the extent to which the Ghana Teacher Licensure Exam is aligned with the National Teacher Standards and other supporting policies or framework such as the pre-tertiary curriculum.
Dr Adutwum added that there is a need to make good assessments in regard to the quality of students being admitted into “the teacher education institutions relative to the grade and program of specialization at the senior high schools.”
Again, the committee will “look at the selection process of students going into teacher education institutions, and also look at the possibility of integrating Ghana Teacher Licensure Exams in terms of the curriculum, the assessment framework into the assessment at the institution, and then examining best practices globally and advising the minister,” the Education Minister stated.
In regard to this, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has expressed its support for the move by the Ministry.
According to them, it is preposterous to see a vast number of teachers unable to pass their examinations.
In an interview with JoyNews, the General Secretary of GNAT, Mr Thomas Tanko Musah said that the mass failure can not be taken for granted.
He was, however, optimistic that the outcome of the investigation will help ascertain the cause of the mass failure and resolve it.
“Once we have this committee in place, it is our hope that at the end of the day, whatever report that comes out, all of us should be given the opportunity to discuss the report and the way forward, because it is very, very important – you cannot write an exam and have 85% of your people failing and taking it for granted.”
GNAT’s comments follow the National Teaching Council (NTC) revelation that about 83.5 per cent of candidates failed the teacher licensure exams which were held in May 2023.
The NTC also noted that out of the 7,728 students who participated in the re-sit exams, only 1,277 passed, while as many as 6, 451 failed.
The assessment in numeracy, literacy and professional knowledge is to enable qualified students to get a professional license while attracting young graduates with the required professional knowledge and skills to teach.
Following the failure, the Registrar of the Council, Christian Addai-Poku said that the teachers who failed would be given a last chance to re-sit for the exams.
According to him, the reform provides three chances for teachers who fail the exam to redeem themselves.
“They have one last opportunity because the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination is going through reform, and when the reform kicks in, the current dispensation will fade out,” he said.
On the back of this, Mr Musah said that his outfit would require full disclosure of the committee’s work after they are done with the investigation.
“The question we need to ask is where they engage, did they go to primary school – JHS, SHS and for that matter, the University to the extent that we were told that some of them, they have master’s degrees and all that. So these are not things that we can take lightly,” he said.
