In 2026 the NTC warned that teachers without professional qualifications would not be permitted to remain in the Ghana Education Service beyond December 2026, and introduced a fast-track diploma route in two cohorts. Edves keeps the licence and CPD record schools need to manage this.
What the NTC does
The National Teaching Council is mandated under the Education Regulatory Bodies Act 2020 (Act 1023) to improve the professional standing of teachers and to handle licensing and registration. To be recognised as a teacher in Ghana, a person must hold a professional licence, and licences are maintained through continuing professional development.
What actually happened to the licensure examination
This has been widely misreported, so it is worth being precise.
The Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination was the subject of a government commitment to reform, and in April 2025 the Minister for Education directed the NTC to develop an alternative to the existing examination. A number of outlets subsequently reported that the licensure examination had been cancelled.
The NTC has stated that it has not been cancelled. At a press briefing in Accra in February 2026, the Council explained that the examination has been integrated into the final examination of teacher trainees rather than held as a separate examination taken months after completion, and that it has been modified to include a practical component — with teaching practice reported as constituting 30 per cent of the assessment, where previously literacy, numeracy and professional skills accounted for the whole.
GTLE examinations ran in March 2026 with results released in June 2026.
If your school has told staff the licensure examination is cancelled, that is incorrect and worth correcting. Trainees now sit it as part of their final semester examination rather than waiting a year afterwards. Confirm current arrangements with the NTC.
The December 2026 deadline
This is the more urgent issue for school leaders.
Following a nationwide survey, the NTC reported that more than 42,000 teachers in basic and senior high schools lacked professional teaching qualifications — reported as 12,279 in senior high schools and more than 30,000 in basic schools, with the Ashanti Region recording the highest number.
In May 2026 the NTC warned that teachers without valid professional licences would not be permitted to remain in the Ghana Education Service beyond December 2026, and introduced a nationwide fast-track diploma programme in two cohorts to help affected teachers regularise their status. The Council indicated it would formally notify GES about teachers failing to meet the deadline.
For a head teacher or proprietor, three questions follow immediately:
- Which of our teachers hold a current NTC licence? Most schools cannot answer this from a system; they answer it from a filing cabinet, incompletely.
- Which are enrolled on a route to qualification, and where are they in it?
- What is our exposure in January 2027 if the deadline holds — which subjects, which classes, which cover arrangements?
The third question is a staffing continuity problem, and answering it in December is too late. Confirm the current position and any changes to the deadline with the NTC directly.
CPD points
Licence maintenance requires continuing professional development, and the NTC has made CPD opportunities available including free online workshops. In most schools the CPD record is assembled hurriedly from certificates in a drawer when a renewal falls due.
Edves keeps a continuous CPD record per teacher: sessions completed, observation history, coaching cycles and internally delivered development. When a renewal is due, the record already exists.
What Edves provides
- Staff register with licence status, licence number, expiry and renewal date, with alerts before expiry rather than after.
- Qualification tracking, including progress for teachers on a route to qualification.
- Continuous CPD records per teacher, covering internal and external development.
- Observation history linked to CPD, so development responds to what was actually seen — see teacher development.
- Deployment view showing which classes and subjects are covered by unlicensed staff, which is what turns a compliance list into a staffing plan.
- EMIS-ready staffing data — see GES and EMIS reporting.
A note on how to use this
There is a version of this data that is punitive and a version that is useful. A list of unlicensed teachers handed to a district office is the first. The same list used to sequence a fast-track cohort, arrange cover and protect examination classes is the second.
Schools that approach the December 2026 position as a staffing and support problem will handle it considerably better than those treating it as a compliance audit — and the teachers concerned are, in many cases, people who have taught competently for years without the paper.