PRINCOF approves College of Education entrance test
The Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education (PRINCOF) following the impending conduct of the College of Education entrance test for WASSCE graduates has said the examination will ensure quality teachers are produced.
In an interview monitored by AcademicWeek, President of PRINCOF, Emmanuel Nyamekye said fresh students seeking to pursue teacher education in various teacher training institutions would be tested on numeracy and literature.
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“The entrance exams will ensure we have committed people who can go through the training programme successfully. It is not an entirely new examination, we used to do that in the early ’90s,” the Conference President stated.
The entrance examination, not to be based on the College of Education minimum entry requirement, 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,” Mr Emmanuel told journalists.
Slated for August this year, the Registrar of the National Teaching Council, Christian Addai Poku has said candidates who become successful at the Colleges of Education entrance test would be given admission to any of the Colleges.
He at a stakeholders’ meeting on the reform of the conduct of the teacher licensure exams said the new entrance exams dubbed Ghana Basic Education Skills Examination Test (GBEST) will access students in numeracy and literacy.
“The GBEST will, thus, be used as the entry assessment for the trainee teachers and after completion, the students will be made to write a level and subject-based licensure examination to be qualified as professional teachers,” he stated.
Mr Addai told stakeholders the teacher training entrance exams form part of reforms being proposed by his outfit to harmonise teacher education admissions and also improve teacher education as part of the educational reforms.