Towards Improving the Quality of Basic Education in Ghana. Teacher Licensure and Matters Arising: Challenges and the way Forward

Quality basic education is the one of the most important educational institutions that influences and is influenced by other educational institutions. The instrumental role played by basic education in developing human resources for both personal fulfilment and social advancement has been recognized in the world over. The general objective of this paper is to review literature and making discussions on the challenges encountered in the Ghana National Teachers' Licensure Examination.It is obvious that even though the works reviewed, the challenges and the ways forward for the licensure examination were not in the Ghanaian setting, the challenges found in other areas where the teacher licensing examination is conducted annually are applicable to the Ghanaian setting. Therefore, the search for ways of addressing the challenges will help to improve the quality of basic education in Ghana. We recommend that there is an urgent need for a tripartite collaboration between the Government of Ghana, the Ministry of Education and the National Teaching Council to be able to establish a committee that is responsible for addressing the challenges of the teacher licensure examination in Ghana. This will go a long way to help in addressing the problems or the challenges that arises in the conduct of the teacher licensure examination year by year in Ghana before the challenges become compounded and get out of hands. As the saying goes, "the earlier, the better".