The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) says the mandatory Professional Qualifying Examination(PQE) for qualified teachers who want to register with the council is scheduled to commence in October.
Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, the Registrar, TRCN made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
Ajiboye added that all unqualified teachers would not be allowed into the classrooms by the end of 2017.
Cue in audio (Ajiboye)
“The teachers Registration Council of Nigeria has come out with a policy decision which is backed and supported by the Federal Ministry of Education.
“The ministry has approved that the regular registration without qualifying examination should stop by the 31st of May 2017 and the first professional qualifying examination will take place in October 2017.
“We are going to stop just normal registration of qualified teachers without examination by the end of this month.
“We have done advertisement in Nigeria newspapers and have sensitised teachers to this that definitely by the end of this month we will stop normal registration.
“Any teacher who is qualified who now wants to register as a professional teacher in Nigeria will have to take professional qualifying examination.
“For teachers who are not qualified the government policy is that we will no longer allow unqualified teachers to be in our classrooms at the end of 2017.
“These teachers have been given enough time to go remediate for this lack of qualification by taking professional diploma in education or post graduate diploma in education as the case maybe.
“Those teachers that are not qualified poses a great danger to the Nigerian educational system and because of that we want to wipe off all quacks and the act of quackery from teaching in Nigeria.
“So any teacher that is not qualified will no longer be found in Nigerian classrooms from 2018.’’
Cue out audio
Ajiboye said the council was ready for the exercise in terms of manpower having opened offices across the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.
He said the forms for the examination would soon become available for the various categories of teachers.
He added that the Federal Government would strengthen the council to enable it to cope with the demands of the registration.
Speaking on the issue of unqualified teachers in private schools in the country, Ajiboye said the council and the leadership of the proprietors of private schools in the country were in talks.
“We informed them that we found out that a large number of unqualified teachers are teaching in our private schools and we want a situation where this is reversed.
“As private providers they are supposed to be leading examples by employing qualified teachers.
“We had a fruitful discussion with the leadership and it is still ongoing,’’ he stated. (NAN)
OKE/DOR/YEE