The Registrar of the National Teaching Council (NTC), Dr Christian Addai-Poku, has hinted that teacher reforms in Ghana have now become a model for many African countries.
This, according to him is proven by the visitors it has been receiving from other countries to study what the NTC has been doing.
Dr Addai-Poku announced this on Thursday when he delivered a welcome address during the dissemination of three research findings conducted by three research groups on the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE).
The topic of the first study was “An Evaluation of the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination”, the second was – “Quality and Trend Analysis of the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examinations” and the last one was “Teacher Professionalism and Professional Practice in Ghana”.
He explained that section 59 of the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) mandates the National Teaching Council to regulate teaching in Ghana.
Dr Addai-Poku indicated that “in fulfilment of this legal directive, the Council, since 2018 has introduced the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) which is aimed at ensuring that prospective teachers after graduating from the teacher education institutions are further filtered through the license exams to get the right professionals into Ghanaian schools.
The Registrar said in-service teachers, on the other hand, were required to undergo continuous professional development (CPD) to improve their skills and to accrue the needed points to renew their license upon expiry, adding that teachers apply the knowledge gained from CPD activities in the classroom is also of insurable interest to the Council.
Proof of improvement
“I am proud to say that with the support of stakeholders like you, the Council has achieved a lot in its teacher reforms pathway. Recently, Ghana was selected by the UK government as one of the four countries in Africa whose teachers are exempted from the Qualified Teachers Status (QTS) assessment should they apply to teach in the UK. This did not just happen”.
“They did a thorough assessment of the current status of teachers in Ghana before arriving at such an exemption. They had a virtual meeting with me and followed it up with a visit to the NTC office for further verification”.
The Board Chair of NTC, Mr Anis Haffar, praised the various stakeholders for their support towards the reforms being executed by NTC with the view to transforming the nation’s economy through education.
He also lauded Transforming Teaching, Education and Learning (T-TEL) for providing the needed financial support for the conduct of some of the research describing them as a formidable partner in the delivery of a quality teacher workforce in the country in line with SDG4.
Review panel
A three-member panel which helped in the review of the research were divided over the pass mark of 50 per cent for all GTLE candidates, they called for measures to be put in place to ensure that NTC is depoliticized so they could work professionally for the good of the nation’s education development which is a source of manpower for various facets of the economy.
Background
After the introduction of the GTLE and CPD policies, the Council saw the need to conduct a study to understand the issues surrounding these policies and to influence further reforms.
Some of the findings of the research are intriguing to note. For instance, one of the results indicated that of the thousand sampled GTLE candidates who failed the exams, 53 per cent still indicated that the GTLE is very relevant.
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