Chidimma Uchegbu
No fewer than 11,629 candidates participated in the second batch of the 2022 Teachers Professional Qualifying Examination conducted by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, (TRCN), on Saturday, nationwide.
TRCN’s Director of Examination and Licencing, Dr Jacinta Ogboso, who monitored the exercise at SASCON International School Maitama, Abuja, disclosed that Abuja had the highest number of candidates with 982 teachers, while Lagos and Anambra followed; and Ondo and Kaduna had equal number of registered candidates.
“We have a total of 11,629 candidates who registered for this examination nationwide and in FCT here, we have 982 candidates who are registered.
Speaking on the importance of the exercise, she said apart from academic qualifications, teachers’ professional qualifying examination is important for teachers to obtain licenses for their practice.
“So, we no longer depend on the academic qualification; after the academic qualification, we are sure that people who are going to the classroom to teach our children are actually professionally qualified; so that is why this exam is important.
“If you do not pass this exam, you would not be registered by Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, and once you’re not registered and identified as a teacher, you would not be recognised as a teacher in Nigeria and anywhere in the world.
“So that is why this exam is very necessary and crucial; no professional qualifying examination, no teacher registration certificate, and no licensing by Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria,” she said.
Ogboso however noted that candidates who fail the PQE are given three opportunities to write, adding that no teacher who went through teacher education should fail the exam more than twice because it covers professional skills and the foundations of education that are taught in colleges of education and faculties of education in all the teacher education programmes.
“So, everybody who has gone through those teacher education programmes should not have a problem passing this examination.
“The result should be ready within 2 weeks. After this exam, the result will be extracted and analysed; and the management will set the cut-off mark and then we’ll look at it. There are processes in every civil service so the processes of approving the results will be done and then the result be released to the public,” she said.
On the crowd at the gate during the commencement of the exams he said officials of the council did their best to ensure that there was no rowdiness but some candidates showed up 7:00am while their exams were scheduled for 9:00am and some whose exam was for 8:00am equally showed for their exam at the same time.
“After addressing them, everywhere was calm because some of them thought that whenever they come, they can enter and write; we don’t even have crowd here; our exam is doing well off,” she said.
According to her, majority of the teachers now are registered and licensed, adding that those who write the PQE and succeed in being licenced have improved self-esteem and self-efficacy.
