The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has expressed worry over the large number of unqualified teachers in private schools in Nigeria.
The Registrar of TRCN, Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, stated this in Abuja at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Council and a South African-based education organization, INSTILL Education.
Prof. Ajiboye said unqualified persons in the teaching profession were not teachers, but cheaters and stressed that they do not only cheat the pupils and students but the system in its entirety.
He revealed that contrary to several speculations about the South-West and its teachers in private schools, 70 per cent have been discovered not qualified.
The TRCN boss stated that a large number of teachers in Nigeria have never been exposed to formal training and have been using outdated equipment for illustration.
“A large number of teachers in private schools in Nigeria today are not qualified. When we carried out a survey, we observed that a reasonable amount of 70% of teachers in the South-West are not qualified as well.
“They are not registrable with the TRCN. So that is to tell you that there is a big gap. So, you cannot call them teachers but cheaters. You know that there’s a difference between teachers and cheaters. If you are not a teacher, you must be a cheater.
“These people do not possess the requisite qualification to register them and so there’s a big gap. So we are looking into the future to fill up that gap like it’s done in South Africa,” he said.
He said the MoU marked a milestone in the proposed collaboration between INSTILL Education and TRCN which was aimed at equipping Nigerian teachers with 21st Century skills that will ultimately support teachers’ professional development and learning outcomes in Nigeria and Africa in general.(RN)
