TRCN threatens ‘naming and shaming’ to expose unqualified teachers

Josiah Ajiboye, the registrar of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) says the council will soon embark on what he called ‘naming and shaming’ to expose unqualified teachers operating in various schools across the country.

Ajiboye explained that the council has been addressing the issue of unqualified teachers in both public and private schools and the exercise has been yielding positive results.

“A large percentage of teachers in public schools, about 80 percent are qualified but the same cannot be said of private schools where we have less than 50 percent of qualified teachers.

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“We’re resuming the monitoring of schools across the country very soon with what we call ‘naming and shaming’ of private schools,” he said.

“We are making a lot of drive working with the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) to make sure that the teachers they employ are qualified.

The idea of recruiting secondary school leavers as teachers is what is affecting the quality of education,” he adds.

The TRCN chief executive officer said it was not right to measure teachers’ quality just with an examination such as UTME which is a one-shot test. He explained that it was abnormal for private schools to be collecting money from parents without rendering consummate services.

“You cannot be collecting heavy money from parents and not be using the right calibre of teachers,” he noted.

However, he urged parents to always visit the TRCN website to know the status of teachers in the school where their children are, as teachers’ profiles have become a prerequisite for registering schools with the Corporate Affairs Commission.

On his part, Kingsley Moghalu, president of the Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation, highlighted the need for Nigeria’s education system to put skill development at its centre.

“Education must go beyond the routine memorization of facts to helping learners acquire various forms of skills that make them form a formidable human capital for the nation’s development.

“Educated citizens must be skilled to be able to create individual livelihoods, community wealth, and national value chains and thus effectively contribute to the economic transformation and global competitiveness of the nation, especially in light of the 4th Industrial Revolution,” he said.

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Referencing the World Bank and UNESCO, Moghalu about 20 percent of teachers in public basic education institutions in Nigeria lack the necessary qualifications.

Stanley Boroh, a lecturer at Federal University, Otuoke, attributed the decline in teachers’ quality to poor remuneration which has made the profession unattractive to qualified personnel.

“There is erosion in the quality of education because we have unqualified persons in the profession, and this can be attributed to several factors; poor remuneration of teachers, as such, people that are qualified lose interest,” he said.

Boroh maintained that the government should train and retrain teachers, and provide an enabling environment for teachers to work.

Similarly, Boye Ogundele, an educationist, said the major problem with education standards in Nigeria was poor remuneration and the absence of good welfare for teachers.

“Don’t let us fool ourselves; the major problem presently is poor remuneration and lack of good welfare for teachers from the government,” he said.