Two years after deadline, more than 50% of Nigerian private school teachers still unqualified —TRCN

THE Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has said that two years deadline, more than 50 per cent of teachers currently in private primary and secondary schools nationwide are still not qualified to be in the classroom teaching. 

The registrar and chief executive of TRCN, Professor Josiah Ajiboye, gave this hint in an interview with the Nigerian Tribune at the weekend. Ajiboye said though this scenario cuts across the six geopolitical zones of the country, it is worse in the northern part and remote communities. 

Ajiboye explained that this meant that teachers in this category do not have basic teaching educational qualifications, which is the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) as stipulated by the national policy on education. 

He said whoever is to be engaged as a teacher in any school in the country, either public or private, according to the policy, must have to possess a minimum of NCE plus the TRCN certificate. 

Ajiboye said the two certificates are mandatory for teachers’ recruitment in the country as evidence has shown that teachers who are professionals perform their duties passionately and more effectively. 

He stressed, “Those without these two certificates are not supposed to be engaged as teachers, much less be in front of students teaching in any government-approved school anywhere in the country.” 

He noted that school owners, public and private, are aware of this federal government policy and that TRCN at a time set December 2019 as the deadline for all teachers in service nationwide who were without the TRCN certificate to get certified or quit the profession. 

He said that is the standard practice in the developed countries and Nigeria cannot be an exception. 

He said the council had discovered that the majority of private school operators (unlike state governments) are not complying with the policy as they are still engaging even secondary school leavers as teachers and paying them peanuts as salaries. 

Ajiboye noted that the 2019 deadline was still in force and no fresh deadline would be given again to enforce compliance. 

He said, those who want to continue to be teachers or want to come in newly must be professionals and therefore must do the needful to be part of the system. 

He explained that the council would soon resume the monitoring and enforcement of the policy which started in February 2020 and was halted midway due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown.

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