A Deputy Education Minister in charge of Basic and Secondary Education, Dr. Yaw Adutwum, has reiterated the importance of the Teacher Licensure Examination to improving teaching in the education sector.
Over 31,000 teachers across the country are taking the Teacher Licensure Examination conducted by the National Teaching Council.
The examination which was postponed from March 2020 due to the outbreak of COVID-19 started Today Thursday, October 1, 2020, with the Literacy course and ends tomorrow with Numeracy.
Speaking to Citi News during a visit to the Accra College of Education Examination Centre where over 1,000 of the students were sitting for the exams, the Deputy Minister said that the exam will give teachers the needed recognition in the professional field.
He added that the exam is done for two reasons; to ensure that the quality of teachers churned out is good and provide NTC with the information about what is being taught to the teachers.
“Exams for teachers, licensing for teachers, and other jurisdictions are done for two reasons, same as here. The first one is to see to the quality of the teachers who are coming out and going to be teaching and within that context, since we have so many universities actually training teachers and colleges of education, private colleges of education, there has to be a common denominator, a one metric or exam that makes you know that they are all doing what is expected of them.”
“So, the second benefit is that NTC gets data that makes them know that all the universities are training the teachers according to the curriculum that has been approved. So, I’m happy that the teachers are taking the exam and we will be able to see what happens,” he added.
He argued that licensure is a rare opportunity for teachers to receive recognition stating, “teachers also want to be counted as individuals who are very proud of their profession. We have done it for generations, and this is a rare opportunity for us to also get our license and tell everybody that we are professionals just like you.”
