The federal government has said state governments have no excuse for keeping unqualified teachers in schools when there are qualified ones yet to be employed.
The permanent secretary in the Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, an architect, said this during the supervision of the conduct of professional qualifying examination for teachers, administered by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) in Abuja on Saturday.
While noting that they are compiling the database of qualified teachers, Echono said every state had people who are qualified to teach but are not yet employed.
“Our starting point is that we first make those data available to them, that all those who are eligible and qualified to be teachers should be employed first, then we now work out programmes on how we can train and retrain and prepare on how to make up the number,” he said.
He restated the federal government’s commitment to flush out unqualified teachers from the profession, saying, “We have commenced the process of ensuring that only qualified teachers be allowed to teach in our schools all over the country.”
Earlier, the acting director, Certificate and Licencing in the TRCN, Dr Jacinta Ogboso, disclosed that 17,141 teachers across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory took part in the batch ‘A’ examination nationwide in 43 centres.
While disclosing that Osun State has the highest number of candidates, she added that all teachers must sit and pass the examination before they would be considered qualified.
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