Registrar of the National Teaching Council (NTC), Dr. Christian Addai-Poku, has announced that 68 percent of Ghanaian teachers meet the required standards according to the Teacher Licensure Examination results.
Dr. Addai-Poku highlighted that teacher performance has consistently been above average over the past seven years.
The Teacher Licensure Examination, introduced in 2018, is part of a broader initiative to ensure that teachers have the skills and knowledge needed for quality education. It serves as a benchmark for assessing whether teachers meet the standards required for employment in the Ghana Education Service (GES).
Dr. Addai-Poku reported that the average pass rate for these exams has consistently been around 68% since inception.
“Using the licensure exams as the benchmark, averagely we’re having about 68 percent of the teachers being of the right standards because that’s how the pass rate has been hovering about,” he explained.
According to the NTC Registrar, this steady pass rate indicates that a significant majority of Ghanaian teachers have the necessary qualifications and competencies for classroom teaching.
He emphasized that the purpose of the exams is not to discourage or disqualify teachers but to uphold high standards within the teaching profession.
Despite the overall success of the teacher licensure exams, there was a notable period of controversy and concern.
Dr. Addai-Poku recounted a troubling incident where the pass rate plummeted to just 16%, a sharp contrast to the usual 68%. This drop occurred during a transitional phase in the examination process and sparked widespread uproar among education sector stakeholders.
“The licensure exams generally have not been too bad. The pass rate, on average, from 2018 to 2024 has been around 68 percent. There were two examinations that were written that brought a lot of furor into the system,” Dr. Addai-Poku stated.
He explained that during this transition period, the NTC temporarily suspended exams for new candidates and concentrated on those who had previously failed and were retaking the exams.
“We were transitioning from the traditional licensure exams, and in the course of the transition, we halted people who were writing and decided to focus on those who had written and had not been successful. We call them re-sitters. We brought them together, and they wrote the exams. That was when we had 16 percent pass, and it almost created problems for everybody,” he recounted on Joy News.