FG vows to flush out ‘quacks’ from teaching profession

Adamu Adamu, minister of education, says only qualified teachers, who are duly registered, would be allowed to teach in the country.

Explaining that this is to ensure professionalism, the minister lamented the decline in teaching profession.

Adamu said this while briefing reporters on the sidelines of the presentation of a draft roadmap tagged: ‘Education for Change: A Ministerial Strategic Plan 2016-2019’.

“Teacher education itself is dying simply because non-professionals have now become teachers,” he said.

“Therefore, the professionalisation and registration of teachers will help make sure that the profession is reorganized with quacks kicked out.

“So, nobody should be employed as a teacher if he or she does not have a teaching qualification; there is no magic if you are not qualified as a teacher: you cannot teach.”

According to the minister, teaching qualification means that the person has undergone the course of philosophy of education and the method of teaching.

Adamu said the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TCN) was in the forefront of ensuring that only qualified and registered teachers would be allowed to teach.

He listed funding as one of the major challenges in the sector, identifying out-of- school children, cultism, exam malpractice and indiscipline, as other problems confronting the sector.

“Only 17 per cent of applicants are admitted into the university and there are 11 million out- of- school children,” he said.

“About 25.3 million students at all levels of education are out- of- school in the country.”

Adamu expressed the hope that the strategic plan would help address the problems in the education sector, saying “this document is the solution to the problems in the sector”.