Cancel teacher licensure exam, I support NDC’s proposal: Prof Gyampo

A lecturer at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo says he supports the National Democratic Congress (NDC) decision to cancel the Ghana teacher licensure examination (GTLE) in its next term of government.

Gyampo in a social media post said ‘The way to go is not to introduce another layer of exam. On the contrary, we must review the curriculum and Training College exams for the purposes of addressing their identified deficiencies.

We are fond of creating new structures to deal with old problems that can be dealt with, by overhauling existing structures. Even when we have the opportunity to overhaul existing structures to make them work, we would want to easily develop “useless new solutions” that do not solve problems.

That’s how we are always looking for new foreign coaches for the Black Stars, even though we know that the problems are within, and that, a serious overhaul of existing structures with a view to ensuring that our real talents and not “bribed talents” get to play, would revolutionize football in Ghana.

Again, that’s how we have gone to create a highly incompetent “eye service” office of Special Prosecutor, instead of overhauling the prosecutorial powers of the Attorney General to ensure that it is effective in prosecuting all, regardless of partisan colouration.

Ghana’s 1992 Constitution is more voluminous than the US Constitution. It has provisions that deal virtually with all aspects of our lives. But we are always looking for new laws to solve problems.

The whole nation is 75 per cent “Churchical” and we have huge Cathedrals almost everywhere in the country. But we still want to build a National Cathedral to solve some “manufactured problems”.

The solutions to the problems we face as a country are known. We need not, for very crude and sometimes corrupt reasons, create new “useless solutions” when we haven’t interrogated and fully made use of the existing structures that have better potency to deal with our challenges.

The Professor’s comment comes after National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, says his party will abolish the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) administered by the National Teaching Council (NTC).

In his address at a tour, John Mahama described the national licensure teacher as unnecessary arguing that teachers already undergo examinations at various stages of their training thus the GTLE becomes a burden on teachers.

The ex-President and NDC flagbearer for the 2024 election said automatic posting of teacher trainee graduates under his leadership will be the mode of teacher employment assuring that no graduate would be denied posting or employment.

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“We will abolish the obnoxious Ghana teacher licensure examination for teacher trainees and restore the automatic employment of teacher trainee graduates. Let me state unequivocally that no teacher trainee graduate will be denied posting or employment under the next Mahama government,” he stated.

Source: EducationWeek.com