The Federal Government has restated its commitment to flush out unqualified teachers from teaching in all the government-owned and private schools across the country.
This was disclosed when about 17,141 teachers across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, wrote the professional qualifying examination, PQE, administered by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, TRCN.
While supervising the conduct of the exercise in Abuja on Saturday, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Arc Sonny Echono, noted that the move is to ensure professionalization of teachers.
Echono warned that nobody should be employed as a teacher if he or she does not have a teaching qualification, adding that if you are not qualified as a teacher, you cannot teach.
The permanent secretary added that the conduct of the examination has been encouraging due to some new IT features introduced to checkmate issues of malpractices.
According to him, a database of all qualified teachers has been compiled, adding that the government will make available the database to states to facilitate employment of qualified teachers who are not currently engaged.
Earlier, Mrs Jacinta Ogboso, TRCN Acting Director, Specification and Licencing disclosed that about 17,141 were to participate in the batch ‘A’ examination nationwide.
While disclosing that Osun state has the highest number of candidates, she added that all teachers must sit and pass the examination before they would be considered as qualified teachers.
Speaking on the issue of teachers with special needs, she said that the TRCN chief executive has been addressing the issue.
