At least 15,750 teachers nationwide sat the November 2023 professional qualifying examination which began on Thursday and ended on Saturday.
The qualification examination is conducted by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) to test the professional competence of teachers.
Director, Certification and Licensing at the TRCN, Jacinta Ezeahurukwe, told journalists, on Saturday in Abuja that the examination ensured that teachers were competent and licenced before they went to teach.
“The examination, conducted in batches, was held in some states on Thursday; it was held in some other states on Friday and the last batch was held on Saturday.
“In all, we had 15,750 teachers who wrote the examination for the `Batch B’ across the country.
“We conducted the examination for more than 100,000 teachers in the past. Our target is to cover all unregistered teachers.
“The examination 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 the academic qualification, practitioners must write a qualifying examination and must be registered and licenced.
“If teachers do not write the examination, it would not be possible to license them to teach. The examination is not testing subject knowledge, it is testing for professional competence,’’ she said.
Ms Ezeahurukwe explained that the qualifying examination establishes foundational knowledge that a teacher must possess and exhibit as contained in professional teaching standards.
Credit: premiumtimesng.com
