Colleges of Education entry requirement reform underway – NTC

The National Teaching Council (NTC) following mass failure recorded in Ghana teacher licensure examination says it is working with other relevant stakeholders in the education sector to revise the Colleges of Education entry requirement

Speaking in an interview monitored by AcademicWeek, the Registrar of NTC, Christian Addai-Poku said the National Teaching Council (NTC) has approached the Ministry of Education and Parliament to begin discussions into the matter.

Citing examination malpractice in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), he said there is a need for WASSCE graduates to be examined again before being given admission to the Colleges of Education.

The Registrar said some private senior high schools use foul means to pass their students into higher educational institutions, a situation he said also accounted for the poor performances in the recent teacher licensure exams.

“We’ve been working behind the scene trying to find a way of dealing with this. That is why we are bringing reform to the Ghana teacher licensure examination (GTLE)

We have even approached the Ministry of Education (MoE) and we have approached Parliament trying to see how we can restructure the entry requirement to the colleges and so on,” the Director of NTC told JoyNews’ Newsfile.

“Sometimes you have to also look at the foundational level; right from the basic school to Senior High School to the university because if the person is really good at SHS and really deserves the WASSCE result that the person used to enter college, then the person shouldn’t have had difficulty in going through the licensure exam,” Addai-Poku noted.

In a related development, the Conference of Principals of College of Education (PRINCOF) has endorsed the Ghana Basic Education Skills Examination Test (GBEST), an entrance examination for WASSCE graduates seeking admission into Colleges of Education.

In an interview monitored by AcademicWeek.com, the President of PRINCOF, Emmanuel Nyamekye said fresh students seeking to pursue teacher education in Teacher Training institutions will be tested on numeracy and literacy.

“The entrance exams will ensure we have people who are committed and can go through the training programme successfully. It is not an entirely new examination, we used to do that in the early ’90s,” the College President stated.

The entrance test which will not be based on Colleges of Education (CoE) minimum entry requirements, Mr Nyamekye said will allow public Colleges of Education to determine who qualifies to be licensed as a professional teacher.

“We are looking for quality teachers and not the quantity we produce each year, we want to be sure that even if there are few teachers they are the ones best suited to teach after their training,” the Director of PRINCOF told stakeholders.