General News of Tuesday, 20 June 2023

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Over 6000 teachers fail 2023 licensure exams

The teacher licensure examination was introduced to improve the standard of teaching The teacher licensure examination was introduced to improve the standard of teaching

A total of 1,277 out of the 7, 728 teachers passed the 2023 licensure exams.

The Public Relations Officer for the National Teacher Council, Dennis Osei-Owusu, in an interview, expressed his disappointment with the outcome of the exam.

He wondered about the calibre of teachers that are allowed to teach the next generation of leaders in the classrooms after the release of results by the council.

Dennis Osei-Owusu further added that the teachers who sat for the exam were re-sitting for the 2nd and 9th time.

“In all, we had 7,728 candidates sit for the exams and these candidates were all re-sitters. They are teachers who had written it before, and they couldn’t make it. The least is twice written, and the highest is 9 times.

"These are the group of people who sat for the exams. Only 1,277 passed the exams, they are the only people who passed and don’t have a deficit again. 16.5% of them passed the exams.

“It’s a national security threat, we are having people going to the classrooms to teach our future generations and if I tell you the kind of things some of them wrote, you ask the kind of training they had in their various training institutions before they got here.

"Everything shows that most of them are not ready to be teachers, they just want to explore the system,” Dennis Osei-Owusu outlined.

The PRO of the National Teacher Council, Dennis, however, provided a window of hope for the failed candidates to re-sit the exam.

He revealed this during a discussion on Citi News.

“They still have the opportunity to write once more. We have introduced a reform, where the nature of the exams is going to change. And so, they are doing the last one, they are going to be given a last opportunity to write if they are not able to make it, then they have to join the reform and pick the exams again.

“Those who qualify for the reform are only teachers with bachelor’s degrees. If you don’t have a bachelor’s degree and you want to join the reform or subject-based up-grade, then they have to get a degree before they can come and sit for that one, that is the arrangements we have for them,” he added.

Over 28,000 newly trained teachers sat for the first-ever teacher licensure examination on Monday, September 10, 2018.

Out of the 28,757 teachers who wrote the first examination, 21,287, representing 74 per cent passed, while 7,432 failed.

The examination sought to ensure that only qualified teachers were employed to teach, as a way of improving the standard of teaching.

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ABJ/WA