Teacher licensure exams: Mass failure a ‘national security threat’ – National Teaching Council
According to the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the National Teaching Council, Dennis Osei-Owusu, the high failure rate of the 2023 Teacher Licensure Examination poses a “national security threat.”
Mr Osei-Owusu stated that, the failure rate of teachers who took the re-sit tests is worrying because it indicates that many teachers who have not yet entered the teaching profession are unqualified to hold the title of teacher.
“This is a national security threat that we need to pay attention to as a country. Some of these teachers have written for the ninth time and others for the second time. We really need to pay attention to this because we are talking about teachers coming to train our future generation so if a teacher cannot even spell his or her own name then we have something at hand.”
6,451 teachers ( 83.5%) failed the 2023 Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination, which was held in May 2023. Only 1,277 teachers who took the examinations again out of 7,728 teachers in total passed.
Osei-Owusu explained that the exams were on three basic areas: numeracy, literacy, and essential skills.
The PRO of the National Teaching Council explained that the candidates were not from only the colleges of education but the universities.
“But I can emphatically say some of them are not fit to be called teachers,” he said.
He said that the NTC is working to improve the quality of the exams and to ensure that only qualified teachers are allowed to enter the teaching profession.
