IFEST describes Minority’s comment on licensure exam as uninformed

The Institute for Education Studies (IFEST) has described the Minority in Parliament's comment on the teacher licensure exams as uninformed.

The NDC Lawmakers have indicated that the licensure examination is “retrogressive and cannot bring out the best in the newly trained teacher.”

According to them, the mass failure of the teachers is a “demotivating and demoralizing attempt to frustrate the teachers before they assume duty.”

A statement signed by the Ranking Member of Education, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe said “The position of the Minority is that the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service should as a matter of urgency suspend the conduct of any further Teacher Licensure Examination and rather review the curriculum for teacher education and make the licensure an integral part of the course program as credit hours to be earned by students towards their certification,”

But IFEST in a press statement issued on Thursday, August 26, 2021, said according to an independent study conducted on the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination in 2020, there is no need for the exam to be scrapped because teacher trainees have come to accept the licensing regime.

“IFEST equally expresses serious concerns on the pass rate for the examination over the years. IFEST’s independent study on the GTLE conducted in 2020 revealed that gradually teacher trainees have come to accept the licensing regime and hence scrapping it should not be an alternative.”

IFEST, therefore, described the call by the opposition MPs as “uninformed and retrogressive.”