Teacher Professional Development Expert and Assessment Consultant, Professor Jonathan Fletcher says the trainee teachers who failed their licensure exams lack the commitment to teaching and should not have been there in the first place.
He asserts that it is not enough to enter into the training institutions with just the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) results which in his view, are generic.
He said there must be some basic entry processes such as interviews or entrance exams to ensure commitment because there are a lot of people that go to the teacher training because it is a last resort.
“A lot of people who go through the teacher training program see teaching as the last resort and as a stepping stone, so they don’t have the commitment to serve. I don’t think the commitment is there because if the commitment is there, I don’t think we will have the kind of results we are getting” he stressed.
Prof. Fletcher said on 3FM Sunrise Morning Show that there are a number of things that are challenging the way we train teachers in Ghana. In the first place, because of numbers the expected quality cannot be obtained because a lot of quality time is required.
“In the first place we have challenges when it comes to training of teachers therefore, I wouldn’t say anybody who has come out of a teacher training program is hundred percent prepared for the work. People have to learn on the job and the first thing is to make sure that people who are actually going to do the job have the commitment and secondly are prepared” he said.
According to the consultant, the system makes it difficult to assess the many teachers so there is a need to find a way to ensure that before they go out and teach, they are well prepared hence there is nothing wrong with the licensure exams because it will help all.
“There are a number of questions we need to ask ourselves. First, whether teaching is a profession or if it is a profession, whether teachers will have to go through a process or a form of assessment before they will be able to ply their trade, and we also need to find out whether the sort of training teachers go through in the teacher education institutions is enough to help them to deliver their various curriculum” Prof. Fletcher told Johnnie Hughes on 3FM Sunrise.
“I don’t have any challenge when it comes to licensure exams because it happens in law, in medicine and nursing. It happens in many institutions and professions. I think that it is important for us to protect our children who are going to be taught by teachers” he opined.
Over 6000 teachers out of 7,728 failed the licensure examination last month, the Registrar of the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE), Dr. Christian Addai-Poku, has revealed.
