UEW gives CoE vs university teachers GTLE performance verdict

Research conducted by the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) has revealed that trained teachers from the Colleges of Education perform better than university teachers in the Ghana teacher licensure examination (GTLE).

In the study piloted by a team of six researchers from the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) from 2021 to 2022, the pass rate of those from the Colleges was 79 per cent, while that for those from the universities was 71 per cent.

In a blog post sighted by AcademicWeek on UEW’s website, the GTLE performance research, which was carried out from August 2021 to February 2022, involved over 3,000 respondents who had written the GTLE from 2018 to 2021.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic on the report, a Senior Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy at the UEW, Dr Richardson Addai-Mununkum, said the ambition of the research was to evaluate the GTLE against its original purpose.

“The purpose of the research was to evaluate the GTLE against its original purpose, identify emerging challenges and make recommendations for improvement,” the UEW lecturer told the newspaper after presenting the research report.

Dr Addai-Mununkum said the results were interesting because in terms of societal positioning, “we assume that the universities are higher and so we expect their candidates for the Ghana teacher licensure examination to do better.”

“So it is interesting that the colleges are actually doing better at the licensure. The reason we found was that the colleges really prepared the learners in relation to the National Teachers Standards (NTS), while in the universities a lot of programmes focused so much on the content areas,” he said.

The Senior lecturer said although the processes and procedures for the conduct of the teacher licensure examination (GTLE) were fit for purpose, there were a few challenges associated with registration and test administration.

He suggested that the management of the National Teaching Council (NTC) increase test-takers’ choice of centres for the writing of the national examination and improve the orientation and training of supervisors and invigilators.

“The NTC should undertake sensitisation and publicity campaigns on the GTLE. Such campaigns may include stakeholder fora and a documentary that could be aired on national television for a period,” the UEW official said.

The GTLE

The Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) was introduced by the government in 2019, backed by the Education Act of 2008, Act 778, with the first-ever teacher licensure examination taking place in September 2018.

It is a national examination organised to license and certify all professional teachers in Ghana as a key policy aimed at improving the professional standing and status of teachers in the country.

Organised and supervised by the National Teaching Council (NTC), the teacher licensure examination is also aimed at building the expertise of teachers in the field of teaching and preparing them for appointments outside the country.

It covers new teachers entering the service, as well as teachers already in active service who also require a licence to practise the profession successfully.

The examination is conducted in three areas — Essential Professional Skills (EPSs), Literacy and Numeracy — after which successful candidates qualify for recruitment into the Ghana Education Service (GES) and posting.