Cancellation of teacher licensure exams suicidal – GES Boss warns

According to the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), it will be suicidal for the opposition NDC government to cancel the Ghana teacher licensure examination should John Mahama win the 2020 polls.

Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwa speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic Newspaper at the Accra College of Education said “If that happens, then we will still keep our teachers below international standards, adding that “But we have to make every effort to bring them at par with their counterparts elsewhere, and that is the best practice everywhere,”

The Management of the National Teaching Council (NTC) postponed the conduct of the 4th edition of the Ghana teacher Licensure Examination to 1st and 2nd October 2020 amid changes in Colleges of Education timetable.

Collectively, 31,167 prospective candidates are sitting for the two-day examination in Literacy, Essential Professional Skills and Numeracy which will end Friday, October 2, 2020, across the country.

Prof Kwasi-Opoku noted if the country was really serious about the quality of education, “then we should be very serious about the professionalism of teachers, of which licensing and continuous professional development are a part”, adding that the provision of the needed resources and other support for teachers was equally important.

According to him “We cannot as a developing country reverse the professionalism of teachers and continue to shout about quality of education”.

He furthered that every professional body had a different way of assessing its members, saying that while for some it was purely practical, for others it was a mixture of practical and theory, while for others it was entirely theoretical.

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Professor Kwasi-Opoku Amankwa said it will soon be compulsory for one to complete the compulsory one-year national service and pass the mandatory teacher licensure examination before allowed to teach in a classroom.

Source: Georgeweb.org