Guidelines and Procedures for Conducting Teachers’ Licensing Examination

The professional teaching license is the highest mark of professional accomplishment that makes the Ghanaian teacher a member of a larger network of accomplished educators shaping the profession and lives.

It demonstrates the legal authorisation of the mandate of the NTC, indicating a teacher has met all standards required for the profession.

The National Teaching Council (NTC) has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that the examination meets technical, professional, and professional standards, and status of a teacher by assessing candidates abilities to practice competently.

Once a candidate has passed a licensing examination, NTC will issue a license to the candidate, thus assuring the public that the licensee is minimally qualified to practice at the time of initial licensure.

Purpose of the Licensing examination

The NTC is mandated by Education Act 2008 (ACT 778) Section 7 to license teachers in Ghana. The sole purpose of a licensing examination is to identify persons who meet the demands of the National Teachers Standards and possess the minimum knowledge, competencies and experience necessary to deliver effectively in the Ghanaian classroom.

Reliability and Validity

A good licensing examination should be reliable and valid. A licensing examination that is reliable produces consistent results. Validity is based on the premise that a candidate who passes the licensing examination is knowledgeable in the National Teachers Standards developed by the NTC

Considerations

Availability of Resources

A licensing examination requires significant amounts of time, personnel, logistics and money to develop. As a general rule, each item appearing in an examination takes between a day or two to plan, write, and review before the item is suitable for use in an examination. Additional time is required to moderate, review, bank, sort and administer in an examination.

The Council may contract testing consultants or test providers who can evaluate the psychometric quality of the examination.

Administrative Procedures

Administrative procedures are critically important to the reliability and validity of an examination just like the examination development procedures.

These questions guided NTC when developing the administrative procedures for the examination:

Proctors: Were the proctors given sufficient training to enable them to know their responsibilities before, during, and after the examination? Does NTC have a core group of trained proctors? What are the educational backgrounds of the proctors? Did NTC do any background check on these proctors?

Proctor-candidate ratio: Has NTC sufficient numbers of proctors to monitor candidate activity during the examination? What relationships exist between proctors and candidates? Candidate registration: Does NTC do identification and verification check on candidates before they enter the examination room? Has NTC formal and standardized procedures in place to register candidates? Were the candidates aware of what goes into NTC proficiency examination?

Seating arrangements: How are candidates arranged in the examination room? How spacious is the examination room? Are the examination rooms well ventilated and illuminated?

Inventory of examination materials: How many answer booklets and question papers were prepared for the examination? Do test items have serial numbers? What are the ranges of the serial numbers of both the question papers and answer booklets? After the examination is over, are test booklets checked for missing scripts?

Storage of examination materials: Where are the examination materials kept before, during and after the examination?

Incident reports: Do the proctors and/or examiners write formal reports of alleged incidents that occur during the examination?

Examination Formats

The examination will be structured into

Paper 1

– objective (multiple choice)

– filling in the blank spaces and

– case study.

Paper 2

– Practical Teaching session.

Requirement for Examination

Before undertaking the examination, a candidate must obtain the following:

– Gone through indexing successfully

– Pass DBE, BEd or a PGDE program.

– Provide evidence of obtaining such certificate(s)

– Apply online and complete the application form for the licensure examination.

– Pay a stipulated licensure examination fee

Pass mark

The maximum score for each examination is 100%. A candidate must obtain at least 50% points to pass each category.

Content of Examination

The Licensing Examination shall focus on major areas of professional values, practices and knowledge identified in the teaching standards enshrined in the PTPDM policy.

Application procedure for the examination

Application forms and fees:

Candidates must complete form online

Pay examination fee

Submit a copy of the receipt to NTC online.

Get a confirmation from NTC