The Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, TRCN, Professor Josiah Ajiboye, says the mandatory licencing of teachers and prompt introduction of teacher qualifying examination before being allowed into the classrooms to teach has helped in exposing the quacks that have been in the teaching sub sector.
He stated this at a one-day Capacity Training Workshop for Education Correspondents Association of Nigeria (ECAN), sponsored by TRCN.
He said, societies across the globe deliberately pay attention to the kind of people they put in the classrooms as no nation can develop without a sound education system in which teachers play a critical role. Hence its determination to rid the nation’s classrooms of unqualified teachers.
Ajiboye reiterated that teachers are critical to the human and capital development of every nation and as such their qualification and standard process must be given the highest form of scrutiny.
”A situation where anyone whether qualified and unqualified is free to stand in front of a classroom to teach is sheer anarchy and Nigeria is already paying a big price for that neglect of the sector, ” he said.
The workshop has the theme “Professionalism of Teaching and Teacher Education in Nigeria.”
Also speaking at the event, Abimbola Okunola, Assistant Director in the council, said that the teaching profession has been rated more critical than any other profession in the world, hence the need to attract the best brains for the practice of teaching in the country.
The Assistant Director, Department of Planning, Research and Statistics in TRCN, Dr Magaji Waziri, in his presentation opined that there was need to set standards at all levels while ensuring quality teaching and learning through monitoring and supervision of teacher education programmes.
The FCT, NUJ Council Chairman, Emmanuel Ogbeche on his part emphasized the need for professionalism by practitioners in the pen profession, as he calls on them to do more in the area of investigation which will help in exposing the ills in the society.
In his welcome remarks, Chairman of ECAN, Chuks Ukwuatu, while commending TRCN for championing the course for repositing the teaching profession in the country, appealed to President Buhari to consider renewing the appointment of Professor Ajiboye so he can continue the good work being done in the nation’s teaching sub sector.