The Registrar/Chief Executive, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, (TRCN), Prof. Josiah Olusegun Ajiboye, recently, urged teachers across the country who have not been duly registered with and Licensed by TRCN, to embrace the final phase of the ongoing registration; certification and licensing protocol being organized by TRCN because the modes of teachers’ registration;
certification and licensing across the country would change from 1st quarter of 2017.
Ajiboye handed down the warning during the 2016 induction ceremony organized for Faculty of Education Graduates of Enugu State University of Science & Technology, (ESUT) and Federal College of Education, Eha-Amufu, both in Enugu State. In his remarks, the TRCN scribe noted that the Council has successfully developed the modules for Professional Qualifying Examination in teaching and was already putting finishing touches to the test items. The implication of this, he added, was that everything was ready for the re-introduction of the Professional Qualifying Examination for the Nigerian teachers. His words, “I want to assure you that before the end of the first quarter of 2017, TRCN would re-launch the ‘Teaching Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE)’. It simply means any practicing teacher without being duly registered; certified and licensed by TRCN would be made to write the exam before being registered by the Council.”
He said, the first step the Council would take towards achieving this goal was to flag off its data collection process across the country using the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), as a pilot. This project, he added would involve a process where TRCN field officers are dispatched to visit schools with a view to collating data from the primary source.
According to him, “our objective on this programme is to get authentic, reliable and accurate data of teachers for the development of ‘Teachers Information System (TIS).” This data, without doubt, Ajiboye stated, would further help the Council to ascertain the level of school compliance to its professionalization drive. The document, he stressed, would help the Council to make informed decision on the process of TRCN professionalization vis-à-vis the Professional Qualifying Exams scheduled to be re-introduced before the end of the first quarter of 2017.
In his welcome address, the Dean, Faculty of education, Enugu State University of Science & Technology (ESUT), Prof. C. I. Ani, commended the Registrar and Chief Executive of TRCN, for the successes so far recorded by the Council within his first four months at the helm of affairs in TRCN. He therefore charged the 239 inductees from the University to keep the fire burning and remain good ambassadors of the faculty and the state at large. He noted that teachers are molders and pillars of the society and in their hands lie the cure to the cancer plaguing the nation’s education system.
In the same vein, the Provost, Federal College of Education, Eha-Amufu, Enugu State, Professor Cannon B. N. Mbah, while welcoming the TRCN team to the 2016 induction of the College stated that the TRCN’s decision to induct education graduates at the point of graduation was a welcome development as it helps in actualizing the professionalization of teaching across the country.
He said the College, in collaboration with ICT University, Baton Rouge Louisiana, USA has launched an e-learning programme, which will help people seeking for Degrees and Professional Diploma in Education. Prof. Mbah however commended TRCN for its efforts at restoring the dignity of teaching profession in Nigeria and linking Nigerian teachers to the teaching Regulatory Authorities in Africa and the world at large (AFTRA and IFTRA) respectively.
The College Provost therefore congratulated the College graduates for escaping the proposed Professional Qualifying Exams of the Council which would start at the first quarter of 2017.
Ojewuyi Olumuyiwa Ayodeji
Head, Information - TRCN
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