All In-Service Teachers will be required to pay GHC 200 each to secure their teacher professional licences, the National Teaching Council (NTC) has announced.
Additionally, they will be required to pay a renewal fee of GHC 100 every two years.
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However, the teacher unions are kicking against the move, insisting that the employer the Ghana Education Service (GES) should bear the cost or "heavily" subsidise it.
But the Executive Secretary of the NTC Mr Christian Addai-Poku who announced this, explained that the license once issued was valid for 2 years.
In-Service Teachers refer to teachers who have been employed before September, 2018 and successfully completed professional training. Preparation
Mr Addai-Poku called on such teachers to commence the process for the acquisition of their professional license.
“They are to log on to www.ntc.gov.gh and upload some required details. The portal will be opened upon publication in the dailies,” he explained.
Mr Addai-Poku was speaking at a sensitization programme for in-service teachers on teacher professionalism at St. Marys Senior High School in Accra.
He took the participants through the National Teachers Standards (NTS), the Licensing Process for In-Service Teachers and the Continuous Professional Development (CPD).
Standards
The National Teachers’ Standards represent the first ever collectively agreed standards to guide teacher preparation and practice in the country.
Speaking on the standards, he explained that they had been developed as a professional tool to guide teacher education and training.
“They are codified and documented materials that present what teachers should know, value and do,” Mr Addai-Poku explained.
Continuous Professional Development
Touching on the CPD for Teachers, Mr Addai-Poku explained that it was the means by which teachers were required to maintain and enhance their knowledge, skills and experiences gained as they worked, beyond their initial teacher training.
“It is a record of what teachers experience, learn and apply. The CPD activities include building of portfolio, in-service training and mentoring.
“Thus, CPD will involve training and education programmes organized within or outside the school environment which NTC approves as being relevant to the teaching profession and meeting prescribed standards,” he explained.
Mr Addai-Poku further explained that the rationale behind CPD was to provide guidance for teachers to continue to improve their competencies to maintain the integrity of the teaching profession.
He said it was an offence to recruit a teacher who had no license or keep in your school a teacher whose license expired or for a person to practise as a teacher when not in good standing.
Sensitisation
The Headmistress of St. Marys Senior High School, Madam Grace Mansa Eshun was grateful to the NTC officials for such an education.
She charged the NTC to undertake such sensitization on regular basis to keep the teachers abreast of the on going reforms.
Madam Eshun further stated that teacher professionalisation was long overdue and that teachers should embrace it in order that Ghanaian teachers would go by the new standards which intended to make them accepted globally.
NAGRAT
For his part, Mr. Eric Carbonu, President of the NAGRAT expressed concern about the amount to be charged for the licence.
He assured the teachers that teacher unions would take up the matter with their employer, the GES to ensure that the GES paid for their employees or at “least heavily subsidise to make it affordable to teachers.”
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