Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, is calling on the current government under President John Dramani Mahama to build on the teacher licensure reform efforts initiated during the Akufo-Addo administration, rather than discard them.
His comments follow a recent directive from the Ministry of Education instructing the National Teaching Council (NTC) to organise a final sitting of the current teacher licensure examination framework by August 30.
The directive, issued by Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu during the inauguration of the newly constituted NTC board on Tuesday, July 15, forms part of a broader plan to transition to a new framework for assessing teacher qualifications.
Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Point of View on Wednesday, July 16, Mr. Asare explained that the review process began under the previous administration in 2024, led by then Education Minister Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, who initiated extensive stakeholder consultations.
He stressed the importance of continuity in education reforms, saying, “Building upon is good for policy development.”
According to him, student-teachers had hoped the new Mahama administration would review the existing licensure regime, which has long been mired in political controversy.
“The Teacher Licensure exams have been controversial because almost every educational policy issue in Ghana has been politicised since the introduction of the Free Senior High School,” he said.
“The second reason why it has been politicised is that there are many student-teachers who were not happy with the licensure regime.”
He added, “They were expecting that since the NPP government introduced the policy on a full scale, a new political authority would be the best to review the licensure exams. The student-teachers had an issue with the examination because of the high failure rates.”
“And also because of the inconvenience of writing an exam almost one year after they had finished school. Even though there are concerns, the reform leading to the concerns has been quite grounded in politics.”
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