The Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, in this interview with FRANK IKPEFAN, explains why Nigeria must remove unqualified teachers from the classrooms.
THE December 31 deadline given by the National Council on Education for all teachers to register with TRCN has passed. What is the next step sir?
I am happy you actually stated clearly that the directive was by the National Council on Education, which is the highest decision-making body on education in Nigeria and TRCN has been charged with the responsibility of ensuring and enforcing compliance.
You will recollect that even in December, we had our last Professional Diet (Professional Qualifying Examination) .and the result of that examination was released two weeks after the examination was held and we still have a large number of teachers going around now trying to register but we can conveniently say that at least 73 per cent of the teachers who took that exam actually passed.
That is to show us that the number of those who are eligible to register has actually increased and we hope that by the end of this January, we would have gotten close to 2.3 teachers that would have registered by the end of this month. Because after they pass the examination, the next stage is actually to go to TRCN’s state offices to go and register.
Now, TRCN is poised to monitor for compliance, the deadline having come and gone. It is the responsibility of TRCN to go out to monitor for compliance. We have set up a technical team for monitoring. That team is being led by a professor.
We have gotten some professors from our tertiary institutions, from our universities across the country. From the University of Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo Useniversity, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello University and the University of Abuja.
We have gathered a team together and also, the Secretary-General of the Nigeria Union of Teachers is also a member of that technical committee to help us look at the modalities for enforcement.
We have developed the guidelines, the instrument and we have also benefitted from the data collected by the Universal Basic Education Commission on the National Personnel Audit of teachers in schools.
We have that data with us and we are trying to print out the data on state by state basis and that will serve as a guide. In that data, we have registered and unregistered teachers. It is a baseline data that is going to be used by TRCN for monitoring compliance.
At the level of TRCN, we had initially collected our data from six states, one from each geo-political zone but the UBEC data covers the whole country and we are going to do the monitoring simultaneously in the 36 states and across the Federal Capital Territory.
Each state team will be led by a professor or somebody of that caliber or another stakeholder of that caliber in that particular state and with that enforcement, we will be able to collate the data of unqualified teachers; those who are not qualified at all and those who are not registered and we will be able to present the facts and the data to confront our states.
First of all, we will publish the data in the dailies. We are going to publish the data to show the performance of each state and the states that are yet to comply fully so that states will know their status.
We are going to publish in dailies (newspapers) to show the percentage of compliance in each state of the federation and the FCT. But this enforcement and monitoring will start towards the end of January. We know that schools are just resuming now.
The monitoring will be carried out in both public and private schools. That is where we are now. The technical committee will be meeting next week. We already have the template that we are going to use. The template for monitoring has been developed and we already have that.
We are going to meet with the TRCN state coordinators after we have finished printing the UBEC data for personnel audit carried out. We are going to call our state coordinators to Abuja and we will discuss with them the modalities for monitoring.
Some teachers took the last exam but failed. What is going to be their fate?
We have the evidence that they have taken the exam once and they are going to have another opportunity to retake it. For such teachers, the sanctions will not apply.
If there is evidence that you have taken the exam and it is only that you did not pass, you still have the opportunity of retaking the exam.
Does that mean there is another window of opportunity for teachers to enroll for the exam?
Yes. What has passed is the deadline to register with TRCN but the professional exam will continue. The door to register with TRCN is still open for those who have not done so. It is not that we have stopped the professional examination. It will continue.
In fact, we are even thinking that we should increase it to either three or four times in a year. We are thinking of increasing the diet maybe on quarterly basis to three, four times in a year.
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So professional examination will continue the same way the professional qualifying examination integrated with induction will continue in all our institutions. What we have done is that the general deadline given by the NCE has passed but that is not the end of the PQE. The PQE will continue.
Is there any hope that this deadline can be shifted so that we can have more teachers register with TRCN?
Let us enforce this first. We have some states where some teachers have been sent to schools because they were aware of the deadline and they have contacted TRCN, but that will not stop us from carrying out our functions.
When we get to the bridge, we will know how to cross it. That deadline, we are going to enforce it. If you know you are already a teacher and you are not qualified but already in school, if you can produce evidence, then there may be a consideration but what we are saying is that, that deadline must be enforced and TRCN is going to go out as from the end of this month to make sure that we enforce the deadline.
What are the sanctions for unqualified teachers caught teaching in schools?
Well, if you are not qualified to stand in front of the children, you know what it means. That means you are not qualified to be a teacher. It is like you are not qualified to be a medical doctor.
What are the sanctions? You will be removed. The implication is very simple but we are not talking of sacking of teachers. Some people will misconstrue us. TRCN is not advocating for sacking of teachers.
What we are saying is that we want to know those who are teaching our children. We want to know them and we want them to be those that are qualified, registered and licensed to practise. If we are able to sanitise the teaching profession, it will help our country greatly.
Because the teacher owes the key to the development of any country. Teachers account for about 70 per cent of what the children learn, especially in primary and secondary schools.
That is why the quality of the teacher is very critical and to ensure that our teachers are of good quality, this is why these measures have been put in place. As a country, to get it right in terms of education, we need to get the issue of the teacher right. Is there a specific date when the monitoring will begin this month?
Before the end of January, we are going to start. We have the data from UBEC and all our staff have been deployed to reducing that data to printable material.
All the staff of TRCN in the headquarters have been deployed to do that so that within the shortest possible time and two weeks, they will be able to complete that exercise and then we will have the package and we will be able to go out for monitoring.
The good thing is that the data by UBEC captures both the public and private schools. That is the good thing about it.
Is the minister aware of your plans to begin monitoring and enforcement?
The position of the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, is that these quacks should be removed immediately from the classrooms. If there is any profession that should be regulated, it is teaching.
Teaching should be highly regulated. When a doctor makes a mistake, maybe he will make it with one life. When an engineer makes a mistake, maybe a few people will die but when a teacher makes a mistake, we are talking of generations and so the teaching profession should be highly regulated.
Given the position of the minister, quackery should be totally eliminated from our school system. His own position is very clear.
There is no ambiguity about it. He has asked TRCN to go out and enforce the position of the NCE. Even at the last NCE meeting in Port Harcourt, he reiterated it that TRCN should go out and enforce the position of the NCE.
Those who have registered with the agency, have they got their certificates?
A large number of teachers who have registered with the TRCN have got their certificates and licences in the past. The recent ones are those who just passed the exam, maybe last year.
The reason why there was a bit of a delay in the issuance of our certificate is because we try to rebrand our certificates. We suspected certain malpractices and our certificates have been rebranded with new security features to checkmate forgery and that has helped us greatly.
When you hold TRCN certificate, there is a way we can check whether it is authentic or not. There are certain features that are not open to the naked eyes that we can use to check.
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