We have trained over 700,000 teachers— NTI

DIRECTOR-GENERAL and Chief Executive of the National Teachers Institute (NTI), Professor Garba Dahuwa Azare, says the institute has trained over 700,000 teachers in the country since its inception.

He made this known on Tuesday in Kaduna during the flag-off of the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) Monitoring and Evaluation of NTI programmes at the North-West in Kaduna.

Professor Azare said the institute had over the years emphasized on how to improve on both the quality of teacher education as well as students’ learning.

He said the monitoring and evaluation embarked upon by the NCCE to assess its programmes on Distance Learning was a welcome development that would end the insinuation about the credibility of the certificates issued by the NTI.

Azare further affirmed that even before the exercise, it had its own mechanisms it put in place to ensure the survival of the distance learning programme as a matter of priority.

Such mechanisms, he said, include the screening of students’ credentials, issuance of course books to registered students, conduct of pre-teaching practice seminars and micro-teaching before teaching practice, among others.

In his own remarks, the Executive Secretary of the NCCE, Professor Bappah Aliyu Muhammad, said the commission was charged with the responsibility of regulating and supervising teacher education at the sub-degree level in Nigeria.

“It is against this background that the NCCE is carrying out the exercise in all NCE- awarding institutions with the view to finding out how they are keeping faith with the implementation of policies and programmes.

He dispelled the insinuation that the exercise was a form of witch-hunt, saying the template for the exercise is very transparent and easy to understand.