TRCN boss wants unqualified teachers, quacks disengaged from classrooms

PROFESSOR Josiah Ajiboye, Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has identified engagement of unqualified teachers and charlatans in the teaching profession as major challenges to the council’s mandate.

Prod. Ajiboye made this assertion at the ongoing stakeholders’ Retreat/workshop ‎on Road Map to Teacher Professionalism and Quality Education in Nigeria in Akwanga, on Wednesday.

He said that they were a major hindrance to the teaching profession in the country and stressed the need to disengage them.

He said the council as the body saddled with the responsibility of regulating teaching profession and ensuring quality in teaching and learning process‎ had made efforts to reposition teaching and regain its lost glory.

According to him, in spite of these activities, TRCN had not fully achieved its goals and mandates due to legislative and human factors.

“Some of these challenges include difficulty in restricting entry into the teaching profession to only qualified and competent teachers.

“The concurrent nature of education has placed the training, recruitment, selection, remuneration, deployment and discipline of teachers under the shared authority of the state and federal government thereby thwarting the effort of TRCN.

“The non-involvement of TRCN and teachers in vital educational issues relating to teacher and teacher quality by stakeholders was also another challenge,‎” he said.

He said other challenges included non-membership and participation of TRCN in boards and operations of other education agencies and wrong perception of the council’s mandate and scope of activities as being limited to registration of teachers. ‎
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‎He called for synergy among the different departments and agencies of the Ministry of Education and other education stakeholders to address some of the challenges.
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He said there was a need to adopt appropriate strategies for recruitment, motivation and retention of teaching talents, effective programmes for professional development and pre and in-service training of teachers. ‎

Ajiboye stressed the need for enforcement of compliance with TRCN programmes and mandates.

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He said the retreat was to deal with these challenges hindering the actualization of TRCN mandates, teachers’ professionalism, quality teachers and standard of education in the country.