11,350 Teachers Write Professional Examination

No fewer than 11,350 candidates participated in the first batch of the Teachers Registration Council (TRCN) Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE) across the country yesterday.

Registrar of TRCN, Prof Josiah Ajiboye, who disclosed this while monitoring the exercise at Sascon International School Maitama, Abuja, said reports from across the country showed that the exam went on smoothly.

Ajiboye, who was accompanied by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr David Adejo, further disclosed that Lagos State had the highest registered candidates for the examination with over 1,500 entrants, followed by Kano State and the Federal Capital Territory.

The TRCN boss noted that Kebbi State had the lowest participants in the exercise, stating the exercise recorded tremendous improvement in terms of participation and accreditation process.

“There has been a lot of improvement with regards to even the accreditation procedure, because part of what we did was to develop an app to be able to accredit candidates; and this is working perfectly well.

“We’re able to check your name, your passport photograph will also appear and everything like that, so we know that the people that are writing the exam are those who actually applied; so, it’s been going on smoothly,” he said.

He said the examination which was conducted in all the states of the federation, started since Wednesday and was concluded in some states at the weekend.

Ajiboye commended commend the candidates for displaying better comportment, adding that their conduct showed that there was maturity and the people are now realising that this is serious examination.

Speaking on the federal government’s effort to weed out unqualified teachers, he said one of the major process of weeding out quacks in the teaching profession is the PQE as it is now obvious that nobody can get the TRCN license without passing a provisional qualifying examination.