Teacher in classroom
A group of teacher trainees known as Friends from Colleges of Education has established to hit the streets of the Kumasi metropolis on Wednesday, August 28, 2018 in an all red attire to protest against the National Teaching Council’s (NTC’s) by hook or crook licensure examination.
The demonstration is in the quest of calling on the government and [ads1]major stakeholders of education to call for the indefinite suspension of the licensure examination to be conducted by the National Teaching Council (N. T. C). The president of the Friends from Colleges of Education, Mr. Tettey Eric disclose this in an interview with an Accra based RBM radio station to confirm an earlier press release.
We are not against the government policy. We are aware it’s mandated by law. But when we entered college and we were given orientation, they never made mention of licensure examination after the three years of Diploma in Basic Education. Just about two days to our (level 300) final exams, the National Teaching Council (NTC) in collaboration with Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T – TEL) sent their personnel to the various Colleges of Education to inform us that three weeks after the release of our results, we (Colleges of Education students) will be writing licensure examination to be conducted by N. T. C and whoever qualifies will be given a license to operate.
But we are saying that we already have an external body (University of Cape Coast) which conducts examinations for us and if another external body (N. T. C) comes in, it is an insult.
He emphasized that the first document by N. T. C page 11 stated clearly that the licensure examination is to be conducted for the coming foury-year badge (Degree in Basic Education students) and not for the Diploma students. Also, another qualification for a candidate is that the candidates should have their names on N. T. C’s portal of which non of the current badge of the Diploma students is qualified for this examination because their names are not on N. T. C’s portal.
Mr. Tettey was very optimistic that the government is doing this to sideline teacher trainees and also the efforts of the University of Cape Coast should not be undermined.
we are calling on the government and stakeholders to come together and ask N.T.C to resend their decision and review the document by following the old document. We want to be exempted from this examination. We are therefore calling on all teacher trainees, especially the just completed badge, the in coming level 200 and level 300 students and all concerned citizens to champion this course against N. T. C’s licensure exams.
The demonstration according to the press release will start at exactly 7:00am starting from Suame roundabout, through the principal streets and finally end around 4:300pm at the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council where the petition will be put before the government through the Regional Minister.
By: Kofi Tamakloe | For more news contact 243583152