The teacher licensure examination: Politics, danger
Plato conceptualised education as turning the mind’s eye to light. In his words, ‘if a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life’.
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He thus regards education as a means to achieve justice, both individual justice and social justice. Similarly, a former President of Harvard University, Derek Bok, and a popular syndicated advice columnist, Ann Landers, are among those credited with the quotation that ‘If you think education is expensive, try ignorance’. This is the context within which I comment minimally on the mass failure of candidates in this year’s Teacher Licensure Examination.
The failure rate raises so many questions and attempts to provide answers to these questions will not be complete without invoking partisan gimmicks. But in a democracy, this is to be expected; after all, the Platonic assertion of politics as an avenue where conflicting interests of different parts of society can be harmonised has not been discounted by democracy activists.
Parliament has called for a probe into the mass failure which, for some, is a political intervention aimed at making it appears that the people’s representatives care. That is also good, at least for the optics.
Wake-up call
The mass failure should be a wake-up call to our legislators that as the representatives of the people, they must at all times take off their partisan lens when it comes to deliberations on policies related to education. It may not completely be out of place, to allege that Parliament is part of the numerous causative factors of the mass failure. Sadly, as has been the practice, they watch on while the destructive seed is sowed only to scream aloud at harvest.
The current state of basic education in the country is not far from a mess and our Members of Parliament (MPs) are aware. These are the very people our MPs have overtly or covertly endorsed the policy of mass promotion at the basic level. Interestingly, when they write the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) again they are all pushed into senior high schools (SHSs).
Is it, not news that a BECE candidate scores grade 9 in all subjects and is allowed to go to SHS? If such candidate(s) need special attention, do we have such in our SHS to properly bring them to par with their peers?
In the SHSs currently, some schools are not running a double track system; yet, students spend two months per semester and there are only two semesters in the year. In effect, the students spend about 12 months in school for the entire three-year period. The truth is that in many of these schools, teaching does start the very day or even the week school reopens; yet, we are made to believe that contact hours matter and have been increased. Parliament is not interested in probing this, I guess. What appears interesting to the politician is the numbers that are enrolled in our SHS.
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As if these were not enough, we see and celebrate the pass rate at the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE); something that appears as an event. Should Parliament not be interested in probing this miracle; despite the enormous challenges, candidates pass with excellent grades? Have we not also heard that there are private schools that prepare candidates for private WASSCE in some regions and all one needs is to pay and register and once that is done, the candidate must pass the exams? Is this also not a miracle worth investigating?
The argument by the National Teaching Council (NTC) that the 2023 Teacher Licensure Examination failure is a “national security threat” should not be taken lightly. The danger of an ill-trained teacher is that he or she might not have the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively teach other students upon certification. This could lead to incorrect information being taught, or ineffective teaching methods that could lead to a lack of student engagement and understanding.
Also, ill-trained teachers can create an environment that is not conducive to learning and development, leading to students feeling unmotivated and discouraged; hence, the rot continues.
They are also a threat to the first, second and third generational rights of people, as contained in the Internal Bill of Rights, and the numerous Geneva Conventions.
Review
It is, therefore, to heed calls from the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) Africa Education Watch, and other stakeholders for a proper review of our education system. Let us remember that an ill-trained teacher is a threat to everyone. He or she will teach a student who will become a nurse or midwife, and when you find yourself in an emergency ward one day, which you do not have control over, you will pay for the ultimate.
The politician may be fixated on education at the senior high level because they are at a malleable stage which makes it easier to attract their vote, irrespective of the threat they may pose, as a result of bad policies which are blamable for their performance. But, the outturn of such policies will negatively affect the ordinary voter more. Let us, therefore, agree that issues of education should not be overly partisan because the consequences are universally catastrophic.
The writer is a lecturer, the Department of Political Science Education, University of Education, Winneba