Gom Mirian
In a move towards enhancing the quality of education in Nigeria, no fewer than 15,750 teachers across the country have taken part in the November Diet of the Professional Qualifying Examination.
Conducted by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), it aims to assess the professional knowledge and competence of teachers before they enter the classrooms.
Speaking to newsmen during the examination held in Abuja on Saturday, Dr Jacinta Ezeahurukwe, the Director of Certification and Licensing at TRCN, emphasised its importance in ensuring that teachers are properly licensed.
She stressed that “the exam is mandatory because teaching is a profession and for every profession, there must be a professional qualifying examination.
“One of the features of a profession is that apart from getting the academic qualification, the person must have a qualifying examination and must be registered and licensed.
“If you don’t write this examination, how do we know you are qualified to be registered as a teacher? So this examination is not testing subject knowledge, it’s testing the professional knowledge of the teaching profession.”
Ezeahurukwe added that the results were expected in two weeks.
“This is a computer exam and we expect that as candidates are writing, the computers are marking. However, we still take our time to sieve out the results, analyse it, look at it and have the management consider it and approve it. The exams written in batches will not in any way lead to malpractices as no two persons write the same exams.
Participants in the examination expressed their support for the licensing process, saying it would benefit the education sector.
