The fees charged for fresh teachers sitting the National Teacher Licensure Examination have not been changed, the National Teaching Council has stated.

It said that for four years, since 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026, the fee remained GH¢450 for fresh candidates.

“The same fee was charged in 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026; 450 cedis, no change,” the Board Chairman of the NTC, Emmanuel Kwame Alorvi, told journalists at a press briefing in Accra last Monday.

The press conference followed allegations that the NTC had increased the licensure examination fees.

He said the fees for resits remained GH¢150 per subject, GH¢210 for two subjects, and GH¢350 for three subjects.

“The last time that the Ghana teacher licensure examination fee was increased was in 2023, under the previous regime,” he explained.

New licensure exams

Touching on the continuous organisation of the licensure examination, Mr Alorvi explained that the examination that was written had been scrapped and a new format introduced.

He said the reformed licensure examination came to abolish the old one and integrated the licensure process into the final year examination of the teacher trainees.

Mr Alorvi added that with the reformed licensure examination, the practical aspect constituted 30 per cent of the final licensure examination.

He announced that the first reformed examination was written last year, in October, which was written in the colleges of education.

The Board Chairman explained that, unlike the previous one, where the fresh teachers were given examination centres, “with the reformed examination, candidates now write it at their respective colleges.”Scraped licensure exams

Explaining why the examination was still taking the old format instead of the reformed, Mr Alorvi explained that trainees in the colleges of education under the University of Ghana could not write the examination because the colleges failed to upload their records onto the NTC's portal.

“So the colleges petitioned the Ministry of Education to allow them to write the examination,” he explained.

He, however, added that even though the Ministry gave approval for the examination to be written by December last year, “we could not, because at the same time, we were organising the first examination for the reformed paper.

“So this year, March, those six colleges of education under the University of Ghana are being given the chance to write the examination, and those who failed in the last examination in October are also given the chance to write it in March,” Mr Alorvi added.

He, however, hinted that the NTC might have to organise annually a resit for those who failed the examination.