THE Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) says it is determined to rid the teaching profession of charlatans as part of its efforts to improve teaching and learning in the country.
Its registrar and chief executive, Professor Josiah Olusegun Ajiboye, made the pledge when he led the council’s management team on a courtesy visit to the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT)’s headquarters in Abuja.
Ajiboye accordingly sought the collaboration of NUT leadership in order to reposition the teaching profession in Nigeria, particularly the need to ensure professionalisation of teaching in the country.
He said that collaboration between the two bodies would enhance efforts at sanitising the nation’s teaching profession through registration, certification and licensing of teachers across the country.
TRCN’s spokesman, Mr Ojewuyi Olumuyiwa, in a statement in Abuja quoted Professor Ajiboye as saying that there is an urgent need to move the teaching profession forward.
The minimum teaching qualification in Nigeria is the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE), but the council has observed over time that many persons engaged by a number of state governments and some private schools in the country are unqualified to teach.
TRCN is particularly worried that such ‘quacks’ engaged to teach children in most schools do not have the requisite knowledge and pedagogical skills for effective teaching and learning to take place.
While stressing that TRCN is NUT’s baby and must not die at stillbirth, Professor Ajiboye declared the council’s readiness to work with the teachers’ union towards moving the teaching profession forward.