Education Minister gives update on 2024 GES teachers recruitment

The Ministry of Education is seeking financial clearance to post as many that would pass the Ghana teacher licensure examination (GTLE) to various schools and communities where their services would be needed the most, the Deputy Education Minister, Ntim Fordjour has said.

In his address at a GTLE centre, the Education Minister said “You have been trained in your various colleges of education and universities. The best of skills have been imbibed in you and this examination is one that is essential.”

The examination he said was to ensure they were the best professionals to deliver wherever they found themselves adding that it was also to ensure that they proudly and confidently walked into their classrooms wherever they were posted, knowing that they were professionals and had passed the requisite tests and had their licences to teach.

“I always say that the most crucial flight anyone can be on is education. But you will never be on a flight if the pilot doesn’t have a licence to fly. Therefore, when you sit for this examination and pass to obtain your licence, it gives you the legitimate confidence to be among members of our noble profession,” he said.

Rev. Fordjour later told the media that the examination was to ensure that after teachers were trained in the various colleges of education and universities, they possessed the minimum requirement to teach in classrooms in the country.

Those standards, he said, were the minimum requirement for any teacher to teach anywhere in the world. Rev. Fordjour said for the past six years that the GTLE had been implemented in the country, it had lifted the standard of teaching.

A total of 14,818 teachers are taking the maiden edition of the Subject-based Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) across the country. They are made up of 6,659 fresh candidates and 8,159 others who are testing.

The subject-based means that teacher trainees are going to be examined on their area of speciality, unlike previously when it was a generalised examination. Candidates sitting for the GTLE have been assured the examination would enable them to teach in Ghana and anywhere in the world.

Meanwhile, the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare says the 2024 recruitment has been delayed because the government has used the financial clearance amount for payment of teacher trainees’ allowance.

“Every week, Eduwatch receives more petitions from teachers seeking Ghana Education Service recruitment than the Ghana Education Service itself. Teacher recruitment is a function of cash.

The fact is, between 2020 and 2024, over GHC 1 billion was invested in Teacher Trainees Allowance, a wasteful political policy amid a beautiful guarantor-free student loan scheme where your Ghana Card is all you need to access.

For your education, the amount spent on funding teacher trainees allowances is part of the salary budget of the Ministry of Education. It is not manna from heaven. It has an opportunity cost.

That amount could have employed and paid the salaries of at least 4,000 teachers every year. For those in school, anytime you eat free, remember the opportunity cost is 4,000 teachers recruitment forgone,” he said in a post.