The Lagos chapter of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) on Wednesday reiterated its commitment toward professionalising teaching with the support of relevant stakeholders.
Mr Segun Raheem, the Chairman of the union told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that NUT was already collaborating with the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) to licence qualified teachers.
NAN reports that the stakeholders included the TRCN and the Lagos State Government.
He said that it was a necessary step toward stamping out charlatans from the teaching profession.
He lamented that teaching had not been given due professional status and was affecting the quality of people being recruited into education sector by the government.
In order to change the trend, he said NUT was collaborating with the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) in the process of licensing the teachers.
“NUT is partnering with the TRCN to put in place effective process that will assist our teachers in the course of getting their licence to teach.
“Those who do not possess necessary requirement will not get the licensed and can be easily identified and flush them out of the system,’’ Raheem told NAN.
He said that the union was also working with the state government to begin to use teaching licence from TRCN as basis for promoting teachers in public schools.
“The union has impressed it on the state government to ensure that the promotion of teachers should henceforth not be based on written test but on professional competence in their teaching.
“The process of licensing will be carried out in such a way that genuine teachers will have their jobs protected,’’ he said.
He said that the licence would attract stipulated fee, according to each teacher’s qualification.
According to him, the National Certificate of Education (NCE) attracts N2,000 fee, first degree and master will pay N3,000 while the PhD holder will pay N4,000.
He said that the licence would be renewable annually, while the teachers would have opportunity to access excellent programmes to continually improve on their teaching skills. (NAN)