70 per cent of teachers in private schools in the South West do not have the required qualifications to be in the profession, the federal government has said.
The Registrar of Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, (TRCN), an agency of the Federal Ministry of Education, Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, stated this on Thursday in Abuja.
He noted that such unqualified persons in the teaching profession are not teachers, but cheaters.
He said the teachers did not only cheat the pupils/students but also shortchanged the whole system.
Speaking at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the council and INSTILL Education on bringing in new dynamics into the profession, Ajiboye revealed that contrary to several speculations about the south west and its teachers in private schools, 70 per cent were discovered not qualified.
While lamenting that 70 per cent of the unqualified teachers lacked the prerequisite to be registered by the Council, the TRCN boss stated that a large number of teachers in Nigeria have never been exposed to training and have been using outdated equipment for illustration.
“A large number of teachers in private schools in Nigeria today are not qualified. We wanted to use a consultant to get revenue from teachers in private schools. When we carried out a survey, we observed that a reasonable amount of 70 per cent of teachers in the South West are not qualified as well,” he said.
According to him, they are not registrable with the TRCN and that is to say there is a big gap.
“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 signing the MoU marks a milestone in the proposed collaboration between INSTILL Education and TRCN which is 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.
He noted that the council had registered over 2.3 million teachers on its database, and developed the Policy on Career Path for the profession and the Professional Standards for Nigerian Teachers (PSNT) which has been domesticated by Sierra-Leone and adopted by the Africa Union (AU) for implementation in Africa.
“The major component of this MOU is to service the in-service teachers. How do we go about capacitating them and up skilling them? A large number of these teachers have never been exposed to a single training programme since they were employed and have been doing thesame thing thesame way, whereas there are dynamics if the classroom and things are changing with regards to the classroom,” he said.
Ajiboye added, “So these teachers need to be exposed to new ways of doing things and that’s what INSTILL is coming with. They are experts who are doing with expertise, technology and will help us to do this type of capitation for our teachers.”