Mass failure in teacher licensure exams a national security threat – NTC

The National Teaching Council (NTC) has bemoaned the high failure rate in the 2023 Teacher Licensure Examination describing it as a “national security threat.”

According to the Public Relations Officer(PRO) Mr. Osei-Owusu, the failure rate of teachers who took the re-sit exams is a cause for concern, as it means that many teachers who are yet to join the teaching profession are not fit to be called teachers.

“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 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 name then we have something at hand,” he stated on June 20.

The PRO of the NTC 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.

A total of 6,451 (83.5%) out of 7,728 teachers failed the 2023 Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination conducted in May 2023.

The results were released by the NTC after the teachers wrote the re-sit papers. Out of the 7,728 teachers who participated in the re-sit exams, only 1,277 passed.

He said that the exams were on three basic areas: numeracy, literacy, and essential skills.