Teacher shortage has hit crisis point – Council

The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) yesterday said teacher shortage is worsening, as only 1.8 million teachers have licenses to teach in schools across the country.

The Registrar, Professor Josiah Olusegun Ajiboye made the remark at a media briefing in Abuja.

He said with the surge in population of school children and increase in number of schools, only 1.8 million teachers were licensed to teach, an indication that the country’s teacher shortages has hit ‘crisis’ point.

He said there were over 1.5 million registered teachers in the country by August 2016 and the council provided additional teaching licenses to 130,645 teachers between August 2, 2016 and August 2, 2017.

Ajiboye said the council would publish the number of subject teachers in each state and take away all unregistered teachers from schools by next year.

He said the council had given 21 letters of professional standing to Nigerian teachers seeking teaching jobs abroad, as well as carried out accreditation visits to teacher training institutions to ascertain standard of their courses.

He said the council had reintroduced the Teachers’ Professional Qualifying Examination and separate modules and tests were developed for four categories of teachers namely; PhD, masters, first degree and NCE holders.

He also said the National Council on Education has approved the return of history as subject in schools.