NTC to administer points-based LICENSE renewal for professional teachers

The National Teaching Council (NTC) is a body mandated by the Education Act 2008 (Act 778), Section 9 to improve professional standards and status of teachers and to license and register teachers in Ghana.

According to information accumulated by HonestyNewsGh, the National Teaching Council is to introduce a new points-based assessment to determine which license holding staff of the Ghana Education Service qualifies to renew his or her NTC License if it expires or becomes due for renewal.

The new Teacher License renewal system was made known at a workshop organized by the NTC at the GNAT Hall in Accra.

Information gathered on the above modality so far indicates that all in-service teachers will be licensed at a fee of ghc200.
This fee will be absorbed by the GES and Professional Development (PD) allowance.
This means teachers will not incur any explicit cost as the fee. But each newly licensed teacher shall renew after every three years at the cost of ghc100.

To qualify for the license renewal, teachers must build their CPD points and portfolio.

All teachers are for this purpose to acquire logbooks into which points will be recorded each time they attend CPD workshops.

The points acquired will be allocated and written in our logbooks at each in-service training attended.

After three years, all accumulated points are summed up to determine whether a teacher qualifies to renew his or her License.

The NTC has not come out with what will constitute the minimum points each teacher must acquire. The points system of renewing teacher’s license is new to Ghana but is a common practice in the US, Asia, and Europe.

Per the information gathered by HonestyNewsGh, It is the points acquired by teachers that will be used to build their portfolio and to qualify them to renew their teaching license. This could be problematic if not thought through well.

The need for the renewal of the license is to aid teachers to develop both professional and personal competencies that will improve their quality, effectiveness, and efficiency at regular intervals. This, when achieved, will empower them to improve their skills and knowledge. This is expected to translate into better job delivery and student improvement.