By Saheed Ibrahim

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The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has said the council was leveraging technology for its operations to track quackery in the teaching profession in Nigeria.

The council’s Registrar, Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, also said TRCN had taken necessary measures to weed out quacks through its school monitoring programme mechanism.

Ajiboye, who spoke during the May Diet of the Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE) of the TRCN, said the report from centers across the country indicated hitch-free processes.

“There has been improvement in the accreditation process because part of what we did was develop an APP to accredit the candidates, which is working perfectly well.

“For this year, we have over 11,350, with Lagos having the highest with 1,500 candidates, followed by FCT, while Kebbi has the lowest number of candidates. So, what we did is to combine states with lower candidates,” he said.

Also, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Andrew Adejo, commended the new technology introduced by the council to get the authenticity of the certificate of teachers.

He said it would go a long way to weed out quackery from the system, adding that  “So I think they are improving on an incremental basis every year on the process for PQE for teachers.

“The Federal Government is making efforts to weed out quacks, but you know it is very difficult, but this exam is part of the way we can weed out quacks.

“We insist that before you can be a teacher in every school, you must meet the minimum standard. As of today, at the junior and senior secondary as well as early childhood school levels, quackery is reducing,” he said

He said the ministry was cleaning the teachers’ database to have fewer quacks in the profession so that quackery does not affect the standard and quality of the country’s education.

He, therefore, urged state and federal educational quality assurance teams to ensure teachers have the required qualifications and skills to teach.