Nigeria: Teachers council to conduct first professional exams this year

The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) says it will conduct the first professional examination for teachers before the end of 2017.

The examination, known as the Pre-Qualifying Examinations (PQE), would serve as a pre-requisite for admission of teachers into the profession.

Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, the Registrar and Chief Executive of the council, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.

According to him, “With regard to the PQE -Professional qualifying examination-the people given the contract, the consultants, they have delivered the test items and we have the custody presently.

“We have also gone to the Joint Consultative Committee on Education to sensitise Nigerians.

“Soon, we are going to begin to sensitise the teachers to know that before the end of this year the first examination will be written.

“We are in the process of sensitisation now and we want to carry the media along and all Nigerians along and in fact our teachers along.

“So that they will know that now those who have not registered through the existing procedure will have to write qualifying examination as it is being done in other professions.’’

Ajiboye explained that the PQE would be written based on the four categories of teachers, adding that the old system of ‘’one size fits all’’ no longer holds.

He said, “Now we have designed a test in such a way that will be suitable to each category of teachers that we are dealing with because when we register teachers we registered them based on the categories.

“Essentially, we have four categories; we have Grade A that is PhD and above, then we have Grade B that is those with Masters.

“Then we have Grade C, that is those with first degree and we have the Grade D that is those with NCE and Diploma.

“The test has been prepared based on the syllabi that covers the whole education spectrum and you are going to be test based on your own category.’’

NAN reports that the Federal Government had set the end of 2017 as the deadline for the registration of teachers with the TRCN.

Prof. Anthony Anwukah, the Minister of State for Education, had said that government would flush teachers without the registration out of the Nation’s classrooms after the deadline.