No fewer than 22,454 teachers who wrote the May Diet of the Teachers’ Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE) have qualified to register for teaching licences.
Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) Registrar, made the disclosure in Abuja on Wednesday.
The examination which was conducted in 42 centres across the country started on June 7 in states that had large numbers of candidates and ended on June 8.
Ajiboye added that the results had been approved by the Governing Council of the TRCN.
He said 27,725 teachers out of 29,898 that registered participated in the examination.
“The result was not bad because the average performance of those who passed the examination is 80.99 per cent which is 22,454 candidates while 19.01, which is 5,271 candidates failed.
“Looking by the state performance, the teachers from Ogun State recorded the highest per cent pass of 95.40 per cent followed by Anambra State with 94.79 per cent and Lagos State with 94.64 per cent.
“The performances of the candidates from other states are also very encouraging and the Federal Ministry of Education and TRCN Governing Board are happy with it,’’ he said.
He said even though PQE was not an achievement test, it was important to ensure that an individual registered as a professional teacher.
He emphasised that the council would not issue teaching certificate and licence to any teacher without writing the examination.
“We are now preparing for October diet of PQE, but the Governing Council also approved that TRCN may organise any other diet of the examination to meet up with the deadline of December 31.
“We are preparing now and very soon we will be able to collate the number of people that have applied so far. So we will determine whether we should organise another examination before that of October diet or not.
“Those who failed May diet have the opportunity to re-enroll and re-write the examination with the new set.
“Those who also passed should go ahead to register at the centre close to them, to be able to get their certificates and licences as qualified teachers,’’ he said.
Ajiboye gave assurance that TRCN would not back down on its position to flush out unregistered or unqualified teachers out of the education system by Dec. 31.
“It is not only TRCN position but the position of National Council on Education that has to be implemented. We will make sure we enforce the law and by January 2020, we will begin to move around for enforcement,’’ he said.
He said that the level of compliance in public schools was above 83 per cent, noting that private schools were yet to comply with the order.
“I am using this medium to appeal to the private school teachers who are not qualified/registered with TRCN to rectify the anomaly.
“Our mandate in TRCN is to regulate the teaching profession in both public and private schools,’’ he said.
The TRCN boss added that the council was not only after teachers’ registration but also interested in teachers’ welfare which brought about the idea to review the Professional Standard for Nigeria Teacher.
“The review is ongoing and the document is in the print now, very soon the documents will come out and be distributed to the registered teachers in Nigeria.
“We want to thank the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) for supporting TRCN for the review of professional standard for Nigerian Teachers.
“We are also developing a policy document for teacher career progression and the Ministry of Education has already given us the mandate to go ahead,’’ he said.
