One of the prospective teachers who failed the licensure exams has explained that the majority of them should not be held responsible for the widespread failure, but rather the examiners.
Madam Kate stated in an interview on Accra-based Rainbow radio that the failures were recorded because the exams did not reflect what the teachers studied in school.
Out of 7,728 prospective teachers who sat again for the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) last month, 1,277 passed.
This has sparked concerns as to the quality of trainees being churned out to teach in schools.
But Madam Kate, who began teaching after completing her secondary education, explained that it was inappropriate to ask someone who had studied early childhood education to write an examination meant for someone who had studied basic or junior high education.
”One major thing I have observed is that I have been to the university, studied and passed all my 24 courses without referrals and been awarded a certificate and my degree, so why should licensure exams stand in my way? Why should I sit for an examination for someone who studied junior high education when I studied early childhood education?”
”The level of mathematics taught in early childhood differs from that taught in basic or junior high school. So, should you pose questions to someone who studied early childhood and expect them to respond when they have no knowledge of the questions and have not studied anything related to them,” she quizzed.
The disgruntled trainee emphasised the importance of the examiners reflecting on her points and reviewing the process of setting the questions because it was not fair to subject them to the current system.
”If that is the case, the questions should be designed to reflect what we learned in school. If you studied early childhood education, you should take exams in that subject, and the same goes for others. The majority of those who failed studied early childhood education.”
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