The Registrar of Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Prof. Josiah Ajiboye on Thursday disclosed that the 31st December, 2019 deadline issued by Federal Government to phase-out quacks from the teaching profession in the country is sacrosanct.
Prof. Ajiboye who stated this during the 2020 budget defence session initiated by House Committee on Basic Education and Services chaired by Hon. Julius Ihonvbere, rated Edo State as number one in terms of teachers qualification.
He, however, noted that the Council has identified six states in the six geo-political Zones with a large number of unqualified practitioners adding that the monitoring exercise scheduled to commence in January 2020 across the states of the Federation.
Prof. Ajibola who expressed optimism that the ongoing repositioning of the teaching profession “will take teaching from normal scheme of service to a new level and will be able to give them their own specialized scheme of service whereby teachers will be motivated and able to enjoy the benefits of their services and ultimately be motivated to do better in the profession”.
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While speaking on the efforts being made to improve the quality of teachers travelling abroad, he said: “TRCN is a member of African Teaching Regulatory Authorities and also a member of the International Forum of Teaching Regulatory Authorities; these two bodies are the ones that regulate teaching in Africa and globally
“And TRCN is a strong member and because of that we have an Article of Faith that has been agreed upon by all Member-nation, and this is what we called Letter of Professional Standing. Any Nigerian that is interested in teaching in any country of the world, what they need to do is to approach TRCN for that Letter
“And when we issue that letter of Professional Standing they are given the same recognition as a professional teacher in any country where they want to teach, so it’s really working well,” Prof. Ajiboye stressed.
He added that TRCN has established cordial working relations with all Development Partners including UNESCO, MacArthur Foundation on teachers education and other training programmes.
Speaking earlier, Prof. Ihonvbere who applauded various initiatives and ingenuity of the Council, harped on the need to improve its revenue generation drive.
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