The Registrar of Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Professor Josiah Ajiboye has disclosed that about 70 per cent of teachers in private schools in the South West are not qualified to teach children in classrooms in the country.
Ajiboye disclosed this information on
Thursday in Abuja during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
between the Council and INSTILL Education on capacity building for teachers in
Nigeria. He stated that a pilot phase of implementation of the MoU would soon
begin, which will involve a capacity building for eight weeks.
Ajiboye explained that the MoU has three
major components, which include pre-service teachers, integrating pre-service
with in-service teachers and their capacity-building programs, and expressed
confidence that INSTILL Education's involvement would bridge the gap between
pre-service and in-service teachers.
Speaking on the issue of unqualified
teachers, Ajiboye lamented that 70% of them lack the prerequisites to be
registered by the Council. He also noted 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Nigeria have never been exposed to training and have been using outdated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% 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," Ajiboye said.
Ajiboye further explained that these
unqualified teachers cannot be registered with TRCN because they do not possess
the requisite qualifications. He expressed optimism that INSTILL Education
might be able to fill that gap in the future, as they are doing in South
Africa. However, the major component of the MoU is about in-service teachers
and how to capacitate and upskill them.
The Dean of Operation at INSTILL Education, Mr Tom Parry, noted that the training received through his organization would always end with a practical applicable component so that teachers have an opportunity to practice and understand.
Parry also stated that the MoU would focus on upskilling in-service teachers, adding that in the future, his organization hopes to bring together the pre and in-service programs into a micro-credential division, so that teachers can continuously upskill themselves, gain access to relevant quality, affordable practical training that is recognized by the government, practical in their classrooms and help them to deliver better learning outcomes.
Furthermore, Parry lamented that 90% of
learners in Africa cannot read for meaning by the end of primary school, while
30% of primary teachers and 50% of secondary teachers are unqualified. He added
that it is just the nature of the system and not an indictment of it, and
without recognizing these realities, we cannot start to address them.
TRCN Director, Planning, Research and
Statistics, Mr. Ugo-Ali Lawrence, stated that the Council first met with
representatives of INSTILL Education on 14th November 2022, where they
commenced discussions on the proposed collaboration to train Nigerian teachers.
Lawrence also disclosed that since 2015,
INSTILL Education has delivered over 1.5 million hours of professional
development, coaching, and mentoring sessions to about 100,000 teachers and
school leaders across five countries, namely Ghana, Kenya, South Africa,
Uganda, and India.
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