TVET teachers to write licensure exams – Prah says
The deputy director general of TVET Service said teacher licensure examination is critical to teacher professionalism
TVET teachers to write licensure examination, says Prah
The deputy director general of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Service of Ghana, David Prah, has said all teachers under the service will begin taking the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) soon.
Prah, speaking at the national teaching council’s research dissemination event on the rollout of GTLE, said the examination is essential to note the characteristics of a good teacher.
He said: “teacher licensure examination is critical to teacher professionalism; a good teacher is expected to exhibit certain professional characteristics, and so these characteristics are put in the teacher licensure examination.”
The registrar of the national teaching council, Christian Addai-Poku, said the teacher reforms put in place have made the country “more competitive.”
Addai-Poku said: “Ghana was selected by the UK government as one of the four countries in Africa whose teachers are exempt from Qualified Teachers Status assessment should they apply to teach in the United Kingdom.”
The registrar stated that the examination is a professional one to assess the people venturing into the occupation without living it out in the training institutions.
Addai-Poku said seven editions of the GTLE have been written, and that the council has seen the need to conduct a study that will help to understand the issues surrounding the policies and influence further reforms.
The research was done in four editions: once in 2018, twice in 2019 and once in 2021.
The research was on “an evaluation of the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination, quality and trend analysis of the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examinations, and teacher professionalism and professional practice in Ghana.”
Section 59 of the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) mandates the national teaching council to regulate teaching in Ghana.
Also, in-service teachers, on the other hand, are required to undergo continuous professional development to improve their skills and to accrue the needed points to renew their license upon expiry.
The GTLE was introduced in 2018 with the aim of ensuring that prospective teachers after graduating from the teacher education institutions are filtered through the licensure exams.
