No fewer than 1, 520 teachers in Kogi state are writing professional examination that would qualify them to be certified as professional teachers. Mrs Zainab Lawal, the State Coordinator, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), disclosed this on Friday at the examination venue at YABMA International Science Academy, Lokoja.
”We are professionalising qualified teachers who had gone through the pedagogy of either being an NCE holder or B.Ed holder or B.Sc; as the case may be, but had gone through PGD to qualify them as professional teachers.
”In Kogi, we have a total of 1, 520 teachers writing the TRCN Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE). But our server can only take 170 at a time and we split them into two. Some are writing today while some would write on October 12. As you can see, everything is going on smoothly and everything is under control,” Lawal said.
According to her, in the past, teachers were registered without writing examination, “but when we go to the field, we found out that our teachers that have been certified, were not professionals.”
”So, it was agreed that for a professional teacher to be certified and licensed to teach in Nigeria, he must go through professional qualified examination. We write the examination twice a year in May and October,” she said.