The Registrar of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, has said 3,963 teachers who sat for the November 2023 diet of the Professional Qualifying Examination for teachers across the country failed.
The November diet, conducted by the TRCN to test the professional knowledge of those in the teaching profession, commenced on November 23 and ended on November 25.
AJiboyi, during an interactive session with journalists in Abuja, said a total of 15,753 teachers sat for the examination at 38 centres across the country, out of which 10,636 (72.9 per cent) passed and 3,963 failed.
“I think you will agree with me that it is a very good result as 72.9% of the candidates actually passed. Yes. That’s 10,600 seats out of 15,753, you agree with me that is a very good result. So, that is where we are presently,” he said.
He said other candidates were absent while others had their results cancelled due to examination malpractices and that all cases of malpractices reported were treated accordingly at the management level and their result was cancelled.
All cases of examination malpractice were identified; they were caught on records because we have evidence against them. And then the cases were treated and discussed at the management level and their results were cancelled,” he said.
He said the council would continue to work towards the improvement of the teaching profession in Nigeria.
Speaking on qualified teachers, he said the council had 2.3 million teachers now registered, out of which over 400 000 had been licensed.
He said the council would beam its searchlight on the private schools in 2024, saying, “Over 83 per cent of teachers in public schools in Nigeria are qualified. The same thing cannot be said of teachers in private school.”
“A large percentage, less than 50 per cent of teachers in private schools are qualified. So, a large percentage of teachers in private schools are not even teachers in the first instance. They are not qualified to be in the class because a large number of them did not really do anything. They just find themselves doing the job,” he said.
While noting that it is getting clearer that teaching is not an all comers jobs, he said the council would take it up with states that were yet to employ teachers in the last 10 years, saying “In some states, you will see two to four teachers taking care of all the school with little knowledge on any subjects they teach.
Reacting to the failure of teachers, an educationist, Michael Sule, told Daily Trust that many teachers were not computer illiterate.
