NCE GIVES 2008 DEADLINE TO ACCOMMODATE STUP

The National Council on Education (NCE) has given 2008 deadline to unqualified teachers to participate in the newly designed educational strategy titled: “Special Teacher Upgrading Programme (STUP).

The Council's Registrar/CE, who disclosed this in Ilorin , Kwara state, during the opening of 2007 workshop on pedagogy in the South West, stated that the extension was necessary to give unqualified teachers across the country another opportunity to upgrade their qualifications through STUP within a very short period.

According to him, ‘STUP' is aimed at upgrading Teachers Grade Two Certificate holders to the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) within two years of its operations, he said, adding that the programme will be coordinated by a coalition of the relevant Federal and State Ministries of Education and their agencies including Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN).

The NCE, the Council's boss said, at its 2006 extra ordinary meeting at Abuja reviewed the progress made so far by States and teachers in complying with the 2006 deadline and discovered that the progress was “too slow”. “It was further discovered that the figures gathered from States indicated that over 100,000 teachers still teach in the nation's public schools with only TC II Certificate.”

However, the NCE in a bid to change the situation set up the Task Team to advise it on strategies for the accelerated upgrading of the affected teachers within the shortest possible time. The outcome of which was the adoption of the STUP.

The NCE at its 50 th session at Yenagao, Bayelsa State , in 2003, declared year 2006 as the deadline for unregistered teachers who are already in the system to get registered. Those with Teachers Grade Two are to upgrade to the NCE while graduates without teaching qualifications are to get the PGDE, PDE OR TTC before the expiration of the deadline. With the commencement of STUP, the deadline has however been shifted to December 2008.

The Federal Government which is the sole sponsor of the STUP project has warned that any teacher who falls within this category but failed to take advantage of the programme will lose his/her job as a teacher at the end of the new deadline. Teachers who have been teaching with qualifications less than the Teachers Grade Two Certificate have been asked to leave the school system as they are not qualified to benefit from STUP.

By: Ojewuyi Muyiwa