The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) is unhappy with government for trying to introduce a licencing regime for teachers in the country.
According to NAGRAT the new policy which includes giving new job titles to teachers, applying for license among others have not been well thought through.
“We do not want a situation where you issue me a license and someone sits in an office somewhere and by a fiat withdraws my license and then I become unemployed. We would want to know the procedure in withdrawing the license of a teacher, the appeal procedure. We will have to ensure job security and not put the mandate in the hands of any person who by whims and caprices decides to withdraw the license of a the teacher and by so he and his family suffers, we will not be able to do that,” Vice President of NAGRAT, Angel Karbonu said.
[contextly_sidebar id=”JwkWT5rAXMmjAlD6IKMsIJWc1QnfNXoo”]The National Teachers Council (NTC) of the Ministry of Education on Tuesday announced that teachers will now have to pass a special examination before being granted a licence to teach in Ghana.
The move, according to the NTC, is to enforce discipline and eliminate non-performing teachers from the system, in accordance with the new Teachers Licensing Policy under the Education Act 778 (2008).
According to Dr. Augustine Tawiah, Executive Secretary-designate of the National Teaching Council of the Ministry of Education, all formalities for the full implementation of the Act had been finalized and a secretariat to issue the licence had been established.
He disclosed that beginning next January; the ministry would undertake re-registration of all teachers in the country to facilitate the issuance of the licences.
He said, no teacher could teach in any school in the country without the Teacher’s Licence from next year.
But speaking on the Point Blank segment of Eyewitness News, Angel Karbonu insisted that at the said meeting the teacher unions raised issues with the policy hence they are surprised the NTC is announcing its implementation.
Apart from speaking against the licensing, Mr. Karbonu also kicked against charging teachers for it insisting that it should be made free in order not to add another burden to them.
“They are also talking about renewing the license within a period of every five years and that in going to renew, in today’s terms, they are quoting about GHc200 for renewing the licences and when a teacher is going for it afresh they will pay between GHc100 and GHc150. We are already worse-off we don’t want to be worse off further. Fair enough, if you feel that you need money to be able to issue a paper called license we are saying that the onus of payment would have to be on government so as not to allow any agency the right to adjusting prices anyhow,” he added.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin