The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, TRCN, has expressed concern over the growing shortage of qualified teachers across the country, describing it as one of the major causes of the declining standard of education in Nigeria.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Council, Dr Ronke Soyombo, made this known on Monday during an interview on Channels Television’s programme, ‘The Morning Brief’, which was held to mark the 2025 World Teachers Day.
Speaking on the theme of this year’s celebration, ‘Recasting Teaching As A Collaborative Profession’, Dr Soyombo noted that the challenge lies not only in the number of unqualified teachers but also in the fact that some individuals who have a genuine passion for teaching cannot join the profession because they lack the required qualifications.
“There are many unqualified teachers in the profession. We have those teaching in classrooms but don’t have the teaching qualifications, particularly in private schools,” she said.
Dr Soyombo further explained that having a certificate alone is not enough to make one an effective teacher. “Again, it is one thing for you to say you have been to teacher’s college, and it is another thing to be able to break it down to the level of the students to soothe their specific needs. This challenge has to be addressed, and as soon as we have the accelerated programme, that is going to bring a lot of teachers in, because they don’t want to come to public schools. And what is stopping them is that they don’t have education degrees,” she added.
According to her, the TRCN is already taking steps to solve the problem by expanding access and encouraging more teachers to get certified. “We currently have about 1.4 million teachers registered with the TRCN, and our target in the next two years is to get to 20 million. What we have done is to digitise our systems, so that more people can be able to register,” she said.
Dr Soyombo also highlighted the importance of teamwork among teachers, stating that collaboration improves learning outcomes. “Every teacher has a gift which is different from one person to another. But what we are propagating in education is for everybody to come together and plan lessons together. You might be three teachers teaching a particular year group, but if you come together and plan lessons together, you are bound to come up with something richer than when you work in isolation,” she stated.