The Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum has said his outfit is adopting new strategies aimed at reducing the failure rate recording in the teacher licensure exams.
Majority of teachers who sat for the exams in March 2021 failed at least two courses in the exams conducted by the National Teaching Council (NTC). Similar issues were recorded in previous editions of the exams.
The National Union of Ghana Students and Teacher Trainees had expressed concerns over the failure rate in the exams.
Dr. Yaw Adutwum has thus assured that the ,inistry will engage stakeholders to address the situation.
He also disclosed that he has instructed the NTC, to have a web portal where the prospective teachers will have access to practice before sitting for the main examinations.
“I had some discussions with the National Teaching Council, and also instructed that they need to have a web portal with thousands of questions for people to have the opportunity to practice because you don’t want people to walk in examinations and will not have the benefit of sample questions that they can use to prepare for the exams. So NTC has taken it up as a responsibility to make sure sample questions are available for the people.”
Over 8,000 teachers fail licensure exams
OUT OF THE 27,455 CANDIDATES WHO SAT FOR THE 2020 TEACHER LICENSURE EXAMINATION, 8,442 FAILED TO MEET THE PASS MARK.
The number represents 30.7% of the total candidates who sat for the exams in October 2020.
A statement from the National Teaching Council said 19,013 teachers, 69.3% passed the exams.
Teacher licensure controversy
The teacher licensure examination was introduced in 2018 to give teachers the requisite certification to practice in Ghana, but became a subject of controversy in the country.
The government had insisted that there is nothing wrong with the process, but the opposition National Democratic Congress said the mode of delivery of the exams is not the best..