Stakeholders in the education sector have called for a review of the entrance requirements for Colleges of Education to avert mass failure of teachers in licensure examinations.
They made the call during a discussion on a local TV station in Accra monitored by the Ghana News Agency.
The discussion was on the 83 per cent failure in the May 2023 Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination.
The discussants attributed the failure to largely the structure and delivery of distance education, criteria for admitting mature students, and non-availability of a cut-off point for entry into Colleges of Education.
Mr Peter Nortsu-Kortoe, a Ranking Member of the Education Committee of Parliament, bemoaned the low pass rate and called for concerted efforts to address the challenges.
“There’s the need for the Ministry of Education and Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) to sit up… and look at the entry requirement critically” Nortsu-Kortoe stated.
He said distance education and its ‘low’ entry requirement for mature students largely accounted for the current challenges of the licensure examination.
He expressed concerns about the situation, saying: “You can get E8 in English Language and once you’re 25 years or older, and sit for the matured student exams, you qualify to do the programme, and they’re the problems.”
Professor Nicholas Nsowah-Nuamah, also said that: “The entry requirement into the Colleges for matured students is a major challenge, and that must be addressed urgently.”
He remarked that in times past, prospective teachers sat for entrance examinations, which allowed authorities to sieve, and ensured that those who had the opportunity to enter into Colleges of Education did so on merit.
“Becoming a teacher, you have to be trained to able to transfer knowledge, so, if we don’t get the right people to enter the College, it’s going to be a big problem,” Nsowah-Nuamah said.
A Senior Lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana, Prof Ransford Gyampo, also expressed concerns about the rate of failure in the licensure examination, and called for the resourcing of the training institutions.
He said it was important that the infrastructure of the training institutions was improved and authorities ensured that they were able to deliver effectively on their mandate.
Prof Gyampo also recommended that the licensure examination be incorporated into the terminal assessment of trainers at the College level, “so that once the person get out of the training centre [having met all the requirements], they’re licenced”.
Dr Christian Addai-Poku, the Registrar of the National Teaching Council (NTC), said he was concerned that unlike the situation in universities, colleges of education had no cut-off point for entry.
“You admit people for a professional programme, so, before you churn them out of the institution, you must ensure that they’re capable of fitting well into the profession,” he said to Colleges of Education.
Dr Addai-Poku disclosed that GTLE had approached the Ministry of Education and Parliament to see how best the entry requirements to the Colleges of Education could be restructured to address the concerns.
Out of the 7,728 prospective teachers that wrote the May 2023 licensure examination as resit, 6,481 failed, with 1,277 passing.
The examination was written in literacy, numeracy and essential professional skills.
It serves as a quality assurance mechanism.