By Godfred A. Polkuu
Gbedema (U/E), Jan 9, GNA – Dr Clement Abasinaab Apaak, the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Builsa South Constituency of the Upper East Region, has reiterated that the National Democratic Congress is not against licensing teachers.
“The NDC is not against licensing of teachers. In fact, we had piloted the project to license teachers. What we oppose is teachers writing a licensure exam. The two are not the same,” he noted.
Dr Apaak, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Gbedema, a community in the Constituency, said “We believe that you can license a teacher without that teacher having to sit to write an exam which is just a basic test of pedagogy, numeracy and literacy.
“We don’t believe that after four years rigorous training, if indeed our Teacher Training Colleges are up to the needed standard, teachers should have to write another exam to obtain a license,” he added.
He explained that an NDC government would make the licensing process part of the training of teachers, “When you get enrolled to train as a teacher, there is going to be a course that you will be taught from year one to year four, and you will write your final exam.
“If you pass all the other courses, and pass that particular course, you are immediately given a license, and you are immediately deployed. So, there would not be the writing of a teacher licensure exam, and there would not be one-year National Service,” he said.
Touching on shortage of teachers in public basic schools in the Constituency, which was a major concern of opinion leaders, the MP, who is the Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament’s Education Committee, said he raised the issue severally at the Committee level.
“It is not fair to us because we are the segments of society that should get the best. In the advance countries like Canada and other places, it is in the deprived communities that they send their best. Yet in our system, the deprived communities are victimized even more.
“So, what we are proposing, which was captured in our 2020 manifesto, which I know will be repeated in the 2024 manifesto, is to have a very attractive incentivized package where we can have quarters with electricity.
“Where the national grid is not in the community, we provide solar, furnish these accommodations with television sets, deep freezers and then we have an agreement with the teachers.
“If they agree to go to the rural communities to teach, they teach for four years, they will have all these amenities, we give them motorbikes, and after the four years, we give them a scholarship to pursue further studies.
“I believe that is a policy that can turn things around. And so, for us in the NDC, and as I have proposed, which was adopted for our 2020 manifesto, and I know will be repeated for 2024, this is the only way we can address this issue of teacher shortage in communities like ours, where we need education the most.
“So, we have a solution, and we believe it will work,” Dr Apaak, who is seeking re-election as MP to represent the Constituency, said.
GNA