Over 9,246 teachers failed professional qualifying exams ― TRCN 

Not less than 9246 teachers failed the Batch A professional qualifying examination conducted in July 2020, by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN).

Registrar/Chief Executive of TRCN, Professor Josiah Olusegun Ajiboye, who release the results the examination on Thursday in Abuja, however, said a total of 28,094 representing 75 per cent passed the examination.

Announcing the results during a courtesy visit to his office by the Executives of the Education Correspondents Association of Nigeria (ECAN), Ajiboye said the examination even though conducted in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic, was a marked improvement over the previous exercise held by the Council.

He said the examination witnessed the participation of teachers from the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), adding that candidates from Kaduna and Rivers states also took part in the exercise after the required permits were secured from the state governments.

Prof Ajiboye said: “On the whole, about 44,363 candidates registered for the examination but the total examined was 37,340 candidates. Due to the prevalence of COVID-19 and something like that, a large number of candidates could not move around or write the exam.

“We have about 7,023 candidates that didn’t write the exam. Majority of these people have actually written the exam before and things like that. They have been noted and what we are going to do is to allow them to write the exam at the next available opportunity.

“On the whole, 28,094 candidates passed the exam, which is 75.24 per cent while a total of 9, 246 candidates failed, giving a percentage of 24.76 per cent.”

While saying the performance recorded in the exam was encouraging, the TRCN boss said the exam was introduced as a gate-keeping measure for the teaching profession.

“We can see that it is a fair result- 75.24 per cent is not bad. Gradually we are beginning to see that the pre-service teachers are getting familiarised with the use of computers. Initially when we started the failure late was very high.

“The major reason we introduced the teacher qualifying exam is that we felt it is not possible for everybody to just walk into the profession and just register like that (without writing an exam). There is no profession that does not have gate-keeping measures,” he said.

Prof Ajiboye commended the new requirement in Colleges of Education that makes it mandatory for academic staff to have a TRCN registration certificate before they can be promoted.

Earlier, the Chairman of ECAN, Mr Chuks Ukwuatu, said the association decided to pay the thank you visit to TRCN’s registrar to express deep appreciation to the agency for sponsoring a capacity building workshop for ECAN a few weeks ago.

Ukwuatu assured the readiness of ECAN to always collaborate with TRCN to achieve its mandate.

Lagos State with 3,574 candidates had the highest number of candidates that sat for the TRCN July’s professional qualifying exam while Ekiti State with 235 candidates had the least number.

The next batch of the Professional Qualifying Exam is expected to take place in early November 2020.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE