Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies, Dr Peter Anti says the percentage of teachers who failed the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) are those who had attempted to pass the exam in previous years.

According to him, the teachers who did not pass the examination have sat for resit several times in order to qualify for the teaching profession.

Out of 7,728 prospective teachers who sat again for the GTLE last month, only 1,277 passed.

The figure represents 16.5 per cent of the candidates who sat again for the examination, introduced to license teachers.

Following this, the Registrar of GTLE, Dr Christian Addai-Poku expressed concern about the high failure rate and explained that those affected had one more chance to re-write the exam at the latter part of the year before its format and content changed.

He told the Daily Graphic that those who would fail again would have to go for the revised GTLE, known as the Subject-based GTLE, which would take off later this year.

But Dr Anti explained that in order for the National Teaching Council (NTC) to implement its new reform with regard to the examination, there is the need to shove off the candidates who had failed over the years.

“If you listen to the NTC, they tell you that a lot of people have failed the exam several times, three times, four times, five times in their attempt to enter the teaching profession.

“….. So it’s like you put a group of students together who have not technically performed well over the years and you want to sieve them and see whether you will be able to get some out of the system,” he said in an interview on JoyNews, Wednesday, June 21.

On the back of this, Dr Anti said that the mass failure of teachers recorded was the result of the new reform the NTC plans to implement.

“That is why you are seeing that percentage of failure in terms of the result that came because these are people who have failed the papers over the years.

“So technically they have difficulty in passing the scripts and then when they sat for the final to ensure that they are cleared off the system so the new reform can take place, this is the result that we are getting,” he stressed.

The Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies noted there is a need to support these teachers to be able to get into the classroom.

"We should not compromise on quality.... we can not just get anybody into the classroom to teach your ward. We need people who understand the content, people who have the skills to deliver the content and people who understand the psychology of the children that they are going to handle," Dr Anti said.