To boost the quality of teaching personnel in the education system, the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) on Saturday conducted Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE) for 12,539 candidates across the country.
Director, Certification and Licencing, TRCN, Dr Jacinta Ezeahurukwe, made the disclosure while monitoring the conduct of the examination at SASCON International School, Abuja.
She said the teachers’ qualifying examination introduced in 2017 has been of great impact in the Nigerian education sector especially at the basic level.
According to Ezeahurukwe state governments and owners of private institutions in the country are now fully aware of the dangers of recruiting individuals without the requisite TRCN certification and licencing to practice as teachers across primary to tertiary levels of education.
She revealed that Benue State topped the list of states with highest candidates enrolment at 1,416 candidates.
She said PQE, which is designed to test the professional knowledge of those in the teaching profession, was a prerequisite for licencing and certification of teachers before being allowed to teach in the classrooms in Nigeria.
Ezeahurukwe said: “At the stage we are at now, we are making sure that every state and any organisation that has to recruit any teacher from primary to tertiary must ensure that only qualified teachers are recruited, and for that person to be certified as a qualified teacher, you must go through these processes.
“The Professional Qualifying Examination for teachers who are to be registered and licenced as professional teachers in Nigeria takes place two times every year, Batch ‘A’ and Batch ‘B’. We take Batch A in May–June and Batch B in November.
“So, this year, 2024, we are taking Batch A of the set that has registered for the examination in May. This examination has started nationwide since Thursday. Some people took the examination in their states on Thursday, some others on Friday, and Saturday being the main day, the examination is going on in all the states of the Federation and FCT.
While giving statistics on the registration of candidates for the examination, the director revealed that a total of 12,539 candidates registered to participate in the examination nationwide.
According to her, about 650 candidates registered for the examination in FCT, while the state that had the highest number of registered candidates happened to be Benue State, which used to have a very low number of registered candidates in the past.
