The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has called into question the locus of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to issue professional licences to teachers in the country.

That authority belongs to the National Teachers’ Council rather than the GES, GNAT General Secretary David Ofori Acheampong has told Accra100.5FM Wednesday May 18.

The GES has announced that it will soon roll out licensing for teachers in basic and second cycle institutions this year, according to an Education Act, Act 778, passed in 2008, mandating that teachers be licensed before they can be employed in the service.

However, Mr Acheampong said it was not the GES’ place to license teachers, as that power had been given to a National Teachers’ Council to be formed with the Education Act in place.

He told Chief Jerry Forson, host of the programme, that: “In the first place, by law, it is not their power to grant teachers licences, it is not the power of the GES to grant such. It is the National Teachers Council’s authority.

“So, it will be that group to provide the direction and determine how the teachers will get their licences to operate as professionals. So, with the noise they (the GES) are making I can’t understand them. They don’t have the mandate.”

He said licensing of teachers would go a long way to enhance the image of the profession.

“So, once licensing happens, we will negotiate at the point of professionals so that what benefits other professionals get, we will enjoy same,” Mr Acheampong noted.