The federal government has announced that any teacher who fails a Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE) prepared by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) before December 2019, would be dismissed from work.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sunny Echono, made the announcement during a computer-based PQE in Abuja. He said the access and quality of teaching and learning must be improved at all levels.
“In the past there was the shortage of teachers and many unqualified persons were taken to fill the gaps. Now, there are many qualified teachers who have been trained and certified and we have put December 2019 for anybody who is not certified as a teacher to be migrated from our classroom. They will find jobs elsewhere,” he said.
He said that here were many qualified teachers who are waiting to be employed and that states and the federal government had started giving them jobs.
He added: “we recently employed over 1,000 qualified teachers in unity schools, so we are gradually weeding out the unqualified ones.”
He further promised that government would continue to provide the necessary teaching and learning facilities in public schools.
The Registrar of TRCN, Professor Josiah Olusegun Ajiboye, said about 22,000 would-be-teachers wrote the exam this month nationwide, including 900 in the FCT. Another exam is scheduled to hold in October.
He said candidates with vision impairment have been registered but that the council was discussing with the Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo, to prepare their questions in Braille.
