Teacher Licensing Law Enforcement Begins 2023 | Education

From January next year, the National Teaching Council (NTC) will start enforcing the law on teacher licensing in the country.

This means that all teachers in public and private schools must by December 31, 2022 have a license before they can teach in any school in the country.

Failure to have a license will result in legal action against the unlicensed teacher and the school owner who employs such person.

“Now we are entering the licensing phase and from January 2023 anyone who does not have permission (license) to teach, the NTC will deal with that person as the law is clear; you can be sued for not having a license and teaching,” NTC Registrar Dr. Christian Addai-Poku told the Daily Graphic in Accra.

Regulatory act

Among other things, he said Section 79 of the Education Regulatory Bodies Act 2020 (Act 1023) stated that: “A person shall not knowingly or negligently employ any person as a teacher in an institution unless the teacher is registered under this Act.

Anyone who contravenes it commits an offense and is liable to summary conviction to a fine of not less than 500 penalty units and not more than 1000 penalty units or to imprisonment for at least six months and at most one year.

Dr Addai-Poku said that next year the NTC will strictly comply with what is contained in the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, adding that once a person is in the halls of class without a license and did not request it, the NTC would prosecute them from January.

As part of the exercise, he said the council would send its inspectors to public and private schools to check.

“We would send inspectors to schools to check. So we go to the school, take the data from the teachers to find out if everyone is fired.

The law not only punishes those who teach, but also the person who employs – public and private schools,” he said.

He pointed out that every teacher in the country is required to have a license to teach.

“If you teach in the Ghanaian classroom, you are part of it, so teachers in public and private schools.

If you are a teacher in a private school and you don’t have a full license, you need to apply for a temporary license,” he said.

Right

The NTC Registrar therefore said by December this year: “You are still eligible to apply if you are not a qualified teacher.

You must apply for a temporary license which is renewable for two years. If you don’t and we come to the school, we will not only sue the teacher, but we will also sue the person who employed the teacher”.

Dr Addai-Poku said the responsibility for obtaining a temporary license was with the teacher, since he was going to teach and it was also the duty of a school to find out if the people it employed held licenses. licensed or not.

“Before even entering a school, ideally, you should have a license before being hired. But if you are already in the system, get that license before the NTC deadline comes into effect,” he said, adding that it would be good if owners also supported their teachers to get a license, otherwise they would have to send them back so as not to fall. fault of the law.

Asked why the law has not been enforced all this time, he said the council took the time in 2018 to educate teachers on the need to be licensed although at that time the law did not pass, “but it was to educate them on the law to come,” which was later passed in 2020.

Immediately the law was passed, Dr Addai-Poku said, the council started with the registration of serving teachers and so went around the country, moving from region to region, district to district, registering teachers and this process was completed this month. .

He pointed out that a teacher could either have a provisional, temporary or full license in order to qualify to teach.

Source: graphic.com.gh

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