Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) revealed that up to 70% of private school teachers in the southwest are unqualified.
The TRCN’s registrar, Josiah Ajiboye, addressed on Thursday in Abuja during the signing of an MoU with Instill Education, a professional development institute for teachers.
He stated that, contrary to popular belief about the southwest and its high-quality private school teachers, 70% had been found to be unqualified.
According to Ajiboye, unqualified teachers not only defraud pupils but also the system.
TRCN’s registrar said that 70% of untrained teachers do not meet the requirements for TRCN registration.
He went on to say that a vast proportion of teachers in Nigeria have never received training and use outmoded equipment for illustration.
“A large number of teachers in private schools in Nigeria today are not qualified,” the TRCN boss stated.
“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 percent 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.
“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.”
According to Ajboye, the organization has approximately 2.3 million teachers on its database.
TRCN, he added, has created policies Professional Standards for Nigerian teachers (PSNT).
He claimed that Sierra Leone tamed it and that the Africa Union (AU) adopted it for use in Africa.