CALL TO ABOLISH THE GHANA TEACHERS LICENSURE EXAMINATION (GTLE) WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT.
The National coalition of unsatisfied candidates of National Teaching Council may,
2021 licensure examination urgently calls on the immediate abolishment of the
Ghana Teachers licensure examination by parliament and other educational
stakeholders with immediate effect on the following grounds.
Teaching is both Art and Science, hence teachers’ competence cannot be examined
only by a mere writing of exams. The six credit hours exams cannot determine the
competency of Ghanaian graduate teachers who has already passed through various
stages of education and training before graduating as a teacher from approved and
standardized Tertiary institutions in Ghana. Licensing graduate teachers is an
honour but writing of the licensure exams should not deter competent teachers from
being licensed to teach.
If a graduate teacher is not competent enough to teach, it has to be detected in the
various competent tertiary institutions before completion and before going for
his/her National service as well. Unless the various tertiary institutions and lectures
/tutors in the tertiary field are no longer fit enough to produce quality, qualified and
competent teachers for the national teaching council to be licensed. For this reason,
teacher licensure exams be abolished.
The exams in its self is not focused on area of specialization of the graduate teacher.
For instance, a graduate teacher who obtains degree in English Language is
compelled to write Mathematics (Numeracy) before he/she is licensed to teach English
The Ghana Teachers Licensure Examination organized by the National Teaching
Council is seen as a means of obtaining money from unemployed graduate teachers.
For instance, the cost of requesting for remarking of scripts is Six Hundred Ghana
Cedis (GHC 600.00) regardless of the registration fees. This sought to impose
economic burden on the unemployed graduate teacher.
The Ghana Teachers Licensure Examination (GTLE) intends to be a violation and
infringement on the rights to employment of the graduate teacher, since the exams
is the only determinant to the certification of the graduate teacher to be employed.
It seems unfair for the graduate teacher who has already passed through several
standardized institutions, came out successfully and fit to teach being compelled to
write Ghana teachers licensure exams before licensed to teach.
For these reasons, the coalition seeks for the immediate abolishment of the Ghana
teacher’s licensure examination to ensure fairness to competent unemployed
graduates. We call on various stakeholders’ immediate intervention to rescue this
situation as a matter of urgency.
The coalition further wants to clear the air on the Honurable Educational Minister,
Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum’s responses on the just ended May, 2021 Ghana teacher’s
licensure exams mass failure to the president. In his statement he stated that the
marking scheme was brought so low, yet candidates couldn’t make it. We strongly
believe he was misled on that claim. We state emphatically that should the marking
scheme been raised further, some affected graduates would still do excellently.
We further wish to state that there were several anomalies detected in the availed
scripts by the Registrar to some of the leaders of the coalition on the day the registrar
invited them.
Anomalies Detected in the Marked Scripts
Some of the anomalies include;
Scripts marked as “Seen” without awarding any marks.
Answers which were correct, were marked wrong among others.
When the registrar’s attention was drawn on those anomalies, he justifies it that he
is not the examiner hence any anomalies detected cannot be corrected by him unless
we apply for re-marking which comes with a cost.
So, how low was the marking scheme brought before so many candidates couldn’t
make it then? For this reason, some members are willing to avail themselves for
their marked scripts to be published to vindicate this claim when it is challenged.
The coalition will therefore resist any attempt by any institution to tarnish the image
of the teaching profession and being a hinderance to the employment to qualified
and competent graduate teachers.
We thank the President of the republic, the ministry of Education, the Minority
caucus in Parliament, the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT),
the media and all stakeholders for taking steps to share our pain and helping us to
find a solution to these problems.
We believe the abolishment of the Ghana Teachers Licensure Exams (GTLE) will
be the best solution to the concerns raised against the (GTLE). The coalition will be
very grateful if that is done urgently.