Professor Josiah Ajiboye-led Teachers Registration Council is mounting a spirited campaign to truly professionalise teaching in Nigeria. Already, it has threatened to stop unlicensed teachers from practising beginning from the end of December this year. NAZA OKOLI writes on the feasibility of this project, among others.
FOR some months now, the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has been in the forefront of a robust campaign to have all qualified teachers in the country registered and licensed. To many observers, this is an ambitious project, one fraught with myriad problems.
To begin with, teaching is unlike many other professions. A general lack of interest in the field has ensured that there is almost always a huge demand for teachers, and often impossible to insist on quality. The council has said the goal of the exercise is to introduce “professionalism”.
Nonetheless, thousands of young people graduate from colleges of education and Faculties of Education across the country without seeking employment in schools. Would these efforts by TRCN help to stem this tide by making the profession more attractive? The registrar of the council, Professor Josiah Ajiboye, certainly thinks so.
Speaking with Tribune Education recently, Ajiboye noted that much of the deadlock could be resolved only if the profession is given a status boost.
“By the act establishing the TRCN, the mandate is actually to make sure we register teachers, and issue certificates of registration, and also issue licences to teachers for them to be able to practise. So, the mandate of TRCN is registration of teachers and certification and licensing of Nigerian teachers.
“The ultimate goal is actually about professionalism in teaching. Previously, people thought that teaching was an all-comers affair. Anybody who could not find any job would just come to teaching. But the country has realised that we cannot have quality education without quality teachers.
“The teacher is first among all the variables that can create effective learning. Therefore, it is important that the teacher has to be a professional – someone that has the knowledge, not only of the content, but the pedagogy as well, and who can deliver excellently. That is the goal of the TRCN.
“TRCN, by the act establishing it, is the only organisation that can call someone a teacher. It is written there in black and white.”
Examination, licence and fees
TRCN intends to kick off with the introduction, by the end of the year, of a qualifying examination for teachers to be known as Professional Qualifying Examination. Interestingly, teachers who are able to complete their registration before the end of the year would not need to bother about this examination. The Council, apparently, hopes that this condition would persuade teachers to sign up as quickly as possible.
A more controversial aspect of the exercise appears to be the mandatory levies. Apart from the initial registration fee, each teacher is expected to renew (by payment) his or her membership annually.
The modules prepared by the Council show that the examination would be in four categories: A for PhD holders; B for Master’s; C for bachelor degree; and D for NCE (Nigeria Certificate in Education). The annual fees will also vary following a similar pattern: NCE N3,000; first degree N6, 000; Master’s N8,000; PhD is N10,000.
Unions disagree
A number of teachers’ unions have expressed dissenting opinions concerning the registration. Members of the Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS); Association of Primary School Head Teachers of Nigeria (AOPSHON) and the Association of Primary School Teachers of Nigeria (APSTON) have described the exercise as unlawful, stressing that membership of professional bodies should be voluntary, rather than mandatory.
The chairman of the Lagos State chapter of ASUSS, Comrade Kasim Labaika, said, “We have told the TRCN that the back door it wants to take to get our members registered would not be tolerated. The Federal Government is conniving with NUT (Nigeria Union Teachers) to exploit our members. That is not acceptable to us.”
To the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), however, the exercise would help salvage the image of teachers across the country. The national president of the union, Comrade Michael Alogba Olukoya, said TRCN’s efforts are in line with the vision of the association.
“What TRCN is doing must be appreciated by real teachers,” he said. “Members should use this window to present their certificates for registration and licence before they are mandated to sit for tests.”
Private school
Many have wondered whether private school teachers would be exempted from the new policy. It certainly would seem an impossible task: there appears to be a private school at every street corner in most states, many of them operating seamlessly without qualified teachers.
“TRCN has the mandate over both public and private schools,” Professor Ajiboye stated. “Whereas the major compliance so far has been from public schools, we want to tell teachers who are in private schools that if they are truly teachers and they are qualified, then they have to register with TRCN. We are not exempting teachers from private schools.
“We have been appealing to teachers in the private schools to come and register. So, we are at the level of persuasion now. Very soon, we are going to get to the level of enforcement, and when we get there, we will make sure we enforce the law to the letter, because the law empowers the TRCN through the Teachers’ Tribunal and through the Teachers’ Investigation Panel to make sure that we remove erring teachers from Nigerian classrooms.”
Reacting, however, the president of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Mr Yomi Otubela, said his members would support TRCN only if the registration would not require any form of payment.
Otubela said: “The National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools will be in support of anything that would move education in Nigeria forward. However, we have not received any official information concerning the registration from TRCN.
“However, we are against any scheme that would further demand money from these teachers. If it is for revenue generation, we are against it. But if it is devoid of any form of payment and it is for standardising the teaching profession, it is a welcome idea.”
He said government should be more interested in providing opportunities for teachers to acquire further training.
“Teachers need to be encouraged. They are not as well paid as other workers from the other professions. We expect government to offer grants to support teachers’ refresher courses and further studies. If government is not looking at that, then that means we are not ready to improve education in Nigeria.
“Teachers contribute to the development of manpower for this country, and the children they are teaching, either in the private sector or the public sector, are children of taxpayers.”
Long overdue
Dr Sophia Madumere, a lecturer at the Department of Educational Management, Faculty of Education, University of Lagos, who spoke with Tribune Education on Monday said the exercise was, in fact, long overdue.
“It is a welcome development. It is important to have teachers registered because it would help solve the problem of fake teachers. Teachers are specialised workers through their training; they have become specialised like other professionals in other fields.
“The issue with teaching is that when it started, specialisation was not a major consideration. The early teachers were really church men. The professional aspects of teaching were not emphasised at the time. Morality and discipline and spiritual upbringing were more important.
“So over the years, in fact as far back as 1880, with the teacher training colleges at Abeokuta and later, Oyo, the teaching profession in the country has passed through a number of phases. I welcome every attempt to make the profession as respectable as the medical or legal profession.”