The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) have agreed on the modality for posting of corps members without education degrees to teach in schools.
Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, Registrar, Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), made the disclosure in Abuja on Friday in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Ajiboye said that TRCN recently held meeting with NYSC Director-General and they agreed on the modality to be put in place in the interim that will mitigate the situation and end sending of non-education degree holders to schools.
According to him, TRCN is not totally against posting of corps members in school because the council is aware that there are corps members who read education.
“ Our understanding with NYSC Director-General is to make those corps members, who read education to be the first to be posted to schools.
“There are some other things we could put in place to mitigate the situation pending the time that we will be able to get the required numbers of teachers in our school system in the country.
“ It is a continuous discussion to mitigate the situation for those inadequacies in place of those corps members that are not educational base,’’ he said.
The registrar noted that there were challenges of having qualified teachers in some states of the federation.
According to him, with the numbers of teachers needed in some states, we cannot stop NYSC from posting corps members to schools because it may likely cause problem in such states.
“We are looking at it from the direction that we will be able to mitigate for those inadequacy. Though, the corps members are auxiliary teachers but we need them to fill the vacuum for now.
“We refer to them as auxiliary because teaching is not their job or profession but they are just using it as National Services.”
Ajiboye emphasized that anybody that wants to take teaching as profession knows want to do to be registered, professionally certified and licensed by the council.
He added that only qualified and well trained and re-trained teachers can bring about a transformed education that the Nigerian youth can benefit from.
“ If you want to become a teacher in Nigeria, then you have to follow the rules of teaching in this country. No teacher can teach in Nigeria without an approval of the TRCN.
“This means the TRCN serves as a necessary instrument of the educational system of Nigeria and failure to do so will definitely face the consequences according to the TRCN act.
“The TRCN Act provides the Council with the ability to prosecute false or unqualified teachers in the country,” Ajiboye said. (NAN)
