Quack Teachers To Face Tough Times In 2018 – TRCN

The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), has vowed tough times for quack teachers in 2018 as there appears to be a surge in the activities of fakes.

Giving the hint in Abuja, the Registrar of TRCN, Prof Olusegun Ajiboye, said the monitoring process to eliminate quackery will start with private schools as a large number of unqualified teachers exists in non-public schools.

Ajiboye however allayed fears over further shortage of teachers as a result of the clampdown on quackery, clarifying that teachers who want to remain in the profession would be forced to undertake professional training.

“As from next year, we will ensure that we sanitise the field of teaching by making sure that quacks are removed from the system.

“TRCN will begin monitoring in 2018 and we will not spare anybody; we are going to start with private schools because a large number of unqualified teachers is found in private schools,” he said.

The Registrar noted that since his assumption of office in August 2016, the figure of registered teachers in Nigeria has moved closer to 1.8 million, representing over 200,000 additional registrations, from the 1.5 million he met on ground.

According to him, the registration was carried out with the active support of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, through a joint committee that captured teachers’ biometric data in all the 774 Local Governments of the Federation.

Ajiboye said further effort is being made to ascertain the number of qualified physics, Maths or English teachers, adding that the Council was embarking on the exercise in an effort to address the disproportionate distribution of teachers in subject areas.

On Nigerians who want to teach outside the country, the TRCN boss said they have nothing to fear as a letter of professional standing issued by TRCN qualifies them to teach anywhere in the world because relevant bodies across the globe recognise such communication.

“We have received 24 letters of professional standing from Canada alone and we have processed all of them; we have also received from US, Australia, UK and others in the past one year; we send the letters through DHL for quick and safe delivery,” he said.

While noting that the commission has made a major breakthrough in the reintroduction of professional qualifying exams, he said the kind of test the council administers is now in categories and not collective.

“With this, the normal registration without qualifying exam has stopped. On October 14, 2017 the first professional exams will hold and teachers who want to sit for the exam have started buying forms,” he said.

Ajiboye noted that 15,000 candidates will participate in the qualifying exams holding in all state capitals and the FCT, urging prospective candidates to properly prepare for the exercise as it would be computer based.