We will resist imposition of teacher licensing without consultation - NAGRAT
The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has indicated it will resist the imposition of a teacher licensing policy on them without adequate consultation.
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According to the Vice President of NAGRAT, Mr Angel Carbonu, the criteria for the validity of the license, modalities and other issues have not been discussed, "and someone jump unto the media landscape is absolutely unacceptable and unfortunate.
"We will not sit by for anyone to impose on us anything that will have diverse effects on our profession, we will not sit by for that to happen," Mr Carbonu said in a radio interview on Class FM Tuesday afternoon.
Read also: Teachers to write licence exams
“I am absolutely disappointed in the Teaching Council, the Ministry of Education . I didn’t know why people think that you can run education in the media. It is absolutely unacceptable.
"What I do know is that the teaching council are developing new teaching standards. We have been in discussion with the teaching council for the past four years on the issues of these teaching standards."
Mr Carbonu said one of the issues that have come up is the licensing of teachers as part of the development of the teaching standards.
“We have asked several questions about this issue of licensing, who gets license, who are the modalities for the licensing, and so on and so forth, and we are in discussion and have not even concluded any discussion… every decision that the teaching council takes will have to be negotiated within our condition of service, because there are monetary implication of certain changes that they may want to introduce."
"So for us to wake up for it to be in the media is absolutely disappointing, breach of faith and it flies in the face of good working relations."
Explaining, Mr Carbonu said they have not gotten anywhere with discussions, taken a decision and have not agreed with them on the position they have taken for them to jump into the media is a breach of and we will write to them to complain.
He said NAGRAT has concerns with how it would be determined that teaching certificates acquired from University of Cape Coast and University of Education, Winneba would not validate graduates as teachers but would have to write another exams.
“When you talk about licensing, we also have to talk about renewal, what will be the criteria for renewal, validity of the license, what are the modalities of the renewal, what are the implications of renewal …all these things have not been discussed for someone to jump unto the media landscape.
When asked what NAGRAT was going to do, he said: “Nothing is coming on anywhere, we will not sit by for anybody to impose on us anything that will have diverse effects on our profession, we will not sit back for that to happen.
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