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Unqualified teachers flood classrooms, especially in private schools, says TRCN
The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has identified the shortage of properly trained educators across the country as a major contributor to the falling quality of education nationwide.
During an appearance on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Monday, TRCN’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ronke Soyombo, voiced concerns on the occasion of the 2025 World Teachers’ Day.
Addressing the theme for this year, ‘Recasting Teaching As A Collaborative Profession’, Dr. Soyombo pointed out that numerous educators lack the necessary credentials, while others who are passionate about teaching face barriers to entry due to insufficient training.
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She added that the organization is implementing initiatives to address the deficit of qualified personnel in the field.
“There are many unqualified teachers in the profession. We have those teaching in classrooms but don’t have the teaching qualifications, particularly in private schools.
“Again, it is one thing for you to say you have been to teacher’s college, and it is another thing to be able to break it down to the level of the students to soothe their specific needs. This challenge has to be addressed, and as soon as we have the accelerated programme, that is going to bring a lot of teachers in, because they don’t want to come to public schools. And what is stopping them is that they don’t have education degrees.
“We currently have about 1.4 million teachers registered with the TRCN, and our target in the next two years is to get to 20 million. What we have done is to digitise our systems, so that more people can be able to register.
“Every teacher has a gift which is different from one person to another. But what we are propagating in education is for everybody to come together and plan lessons together.
“You might be three teachers teaching a particular year group, but if you come together and plan lessons together, you are bound to come up with something richer than when you work in isolation.
“When you also look at the 21st-century education itself, it is very important that we pass the culture of collaboration down to our children.
“We need to allow our children to collaborate with mixed ability groupings. Teachers are really eager this year to see how they can build more on collaboration in their schools.
“On leadership as well, teachers can go to other schools to see which ones are performing well, and take the good practices to their various schools.”
On Sunday, Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, honored educators around the world and called for urgent efforts to resolve the critical lack of teachers on a global scale.
Tinubu referred to teachers as “true heroes, shaping minds, nurturing dreams, and guiding generations.”
In her remarks, Soyombo also expressed worry over the teacher scarcity in Nigeria and outlined governmental measures to combat the issue.
“There is no doubt that we have shortages of teachers, so what we are doing with this particular government is to accelerate professional diploma in education. For people who don’t have it, now is the time they will be able to have access. We are accelerating the course to six months for experienced teachers, so that as soon as they are through, they can have experience. This will make us have enough hands in the teaching line.
“We are going to have enough teachers coming into the teaching line, because people are now eager to come into the profession.
“What the TRCN is also doing is looking at how we can upgrade teachers. We are also supporting them with resources in classes, because some teachers are very good, and are looking for how to plan lessons to support other teachers, and that will also encourage other teachers to come in,” she said.
The echoes of the drums rolled out to celebrate the rescue of the 44 teachers and students, kidnapped from some schools in Oyo State, after 56 days in the bush, would surely be disrupted abruptly, with the divergent echoes of a fresh abduction, this time coming from Kogi State.
Reports indicate that the gunmen, struck on Tuesday at the Government Secondary School, Odo-Ekina, in Dekina Local Government Area of the state, abducting four students, the school principal and a National Examinations Council (NECO) ad hoc staff member.
Authorities of the Kogi State Police Command, who immediately unleashed their operatives in hot pursuit of the abductors, said the attack occurred at about 5:25 p.m. while the students were writing their NECO examination.
Saliu Oyiza Afusat, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and spokesman of the command, said a combined team of police personnel and other security agencies has launched a search-and-rescue operation following the incident.
Informing that one of the students was actually rescued immediately, she said efforts were ongoing to secure the release of the remaining victims and apprehend the attackers, adding that Naziru Bello Kankarofi, the state Commissioner of Police, alongside the Brigade Commander and the State Security Adviser to the Governor, Commodore Jerry Omodara (Rtd), were already on the way to the scene for an on-the-spot assessment.
Oil prices are expected to go down now with the announcement of Donald Trump, US President that he will no longer impose a 20 percent “safe passage” fee on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The POTUS, hinged his reversal of the decision on the intervention from some Gulf countries, who pleaded with him not to toe the line due to the massive economic impact the decision would make on the region.
Indeed, oil prices had shot up immediately Trump announced the new levy on Monday while declaring the US ‘the guardians of the Hormuz strait,’ a measure which he said was to pay for the cost of guarding the volatile area in order keep supply of oil flowing.
Reports said that Gulf allies of the US worked frantically to get Trump on the phone in time to talk him out of the idea altogether, while a flurry of appeals came from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar.
In response, the POTUS, posting on his Truth Social platform, wrote: “Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States.”
Trump, who said the investments would be “MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” added that the deals would see factories, plants, and equipment pour into the US at “Historic levels.”
The Gulf nations have committed to invest trillions of dollars in the US, though it remains unclear how much of that they will actually spend over the next several years.
Meanwhile, the US continues to bomb Iran in what appears to be a resumption of active conflict between both countries, despite an ongoing roadmap to end the conflict.
Reports say operatives of the Osun State Police Command, and those of the Department of State Services (DSS) had tracking the trail of Adeniyi Adeyemi, controversial Director General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), for weeks, before he was eventually pulled out of his hole on Tuesday.
However, the duo, were said to have pulled back after failing to track him through his mobile phones, which he had reportedly switched off for about two days, making it difficult to locate him, leaving the stage for the members of the Police Intelligence Response Team (PI-RT) led by Moses Lohor, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP).
Lohor, said to have previously served as the Commander of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad of Osun State, and reported to have been involved in high-profile security operations and controversies, after taken over fielded his men to pick up signals from their well-oiled signal networks.
Regarded by many Osun residents as one of the key security officers who contributed significantly to the peace and stability enjoyed in Ilesa and other parts of the state during his tenure, he was said to have relied on his contacts before his transfer out of the state, said to have raised concerns from the public about the security situation he would be leaving behind.
His exit from the state was said to be hinged on an incident in 2024, in which he allegedly shot one Iyanda Alowonle, then Chairman of Osun State Motor Transport System, in the stomach at the police station in the state prompting an order for his arrest by then Inspector General of Police (IGP).
His effort was said to have paid off when he successfully tracked down the controversial PFIPC, boss, who was seen on Tuesday evening, in a shot video on social media undergoing interrogation, and eventually handed him over to Ibrahim Gotan, Commissioner of Police in the state.
The PUNCH quoted one of the sources as saying: “The arrest (of Adeyemi) took place on Tuesday morning by the IRT squad, who immediately moved him to Abuja. After he was arrested, he was taken to Ibadan and from there to Abuja.”
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