The Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) Josiah Ajiboye has insisted that the 31st December 2019 deadline issued by Federal Government for the Council to phase-out quacks from the teaching profession in the country remains sacrosanct.
Ajiboye who disclosed this at the 2020 budget defence session before the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education and Services, rated Edo as the number one state with the highest number of qualified teachers.
The Registrar revealed that the Council has identified six states in the six geo-political zones with a large number of unqualified practitioners adding that the monitoring exercise is scheduled to commence in January 2020 across the states of
the Federation
Ajibola expressed optimism that the ongoing repositioning of the teaching profession “will take teaching from normal scheme of service to a new level and will be able to give them their own
specialized scheme of service whereby teachers will be motivated and able to enjoy the benefits of their services and ultimately be motivated to do better in the profession”.
On the efforts being made to improve the quality of teachers traveling abroad, he said: “TRCN is a member of African Teaching Regulatory Authorities and also a member of the International Forum of Teaching Regulatory Authorities; these two bodies are the ones that regulate teaching in Africa and globally.
“And TRCN is a strong member and because of that we have an Article of Faith that has been agreed upon by all Member-nation, and this is what we called Letter of Professional Standing. Any Nigerian that is interested in teaching in any country of the world, what they need to do is to approach TRCN for that Letter.
“And when we issue that letter of Professional Standing they are given the same recognition as a professional teacher in any country where
they want to teach, so its really working well,” Ajiboye stressed.
He added that TRCN has established cordial working relations with all Development Partners including UNESCO, MacArthur Foundation on
teachers’ education and other training programmes.
Earlier, Chairman of the Committee, Julius Ihonvbere who applauded various initiatives and ingenuity of the Council harped on the need to improve its revenue generation drive.
