No fewer than 45,301 teachers who wrote the October Diet of the Teachers’ Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE) have qualified to register for teaching licenses.

Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, the Registrar, Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Recall that the examination, which was conducted in 47 centres across the country, started on Oct. 11 in states with large number of candidates and ended on Oct. 12.

Ajiboye said that the results had been approved by the Governing Council of TRCN, adding that the 62,895 out of 66,354 teachers that registered participated in the examination.

“The result was not bad because the average performance of those who passed the examination is 72.03 per cent, which is 45,301 candidates, while 27.97 per cent which is 17,594 candidates failed.

“Going by the states performances, the teachers from Lagos State recorded 88.19 per cent followed by Enugu State with 85.76 per cent and Kano State with 84.69 per cent”.

“The performances of the candidates from other states are also very encouraging and the Federal Ministry of Education and TRCN Governing Board are happy with it,” he said.

He said that even though PQE was not an achievement test, it was important to ensure that an individual registered as a professional teacher.

He stressed that the council would not issue teaching certificate and license to any teacher without writing the examination.

“We are now preparing for November/December diet of PQE, for the council to meet up with the deadline of Dec. 31. We are organising this Batch C to meet up the requests from many teachers who wish to meet the December deadline and the registration of the candidate will end by Nov. 8″.

“The conduct of the November/December PQE is schedule for Dec. 6 and Dec. 7. Those who failed Oct. diet have the opportunity to re-enroll and re-write the examination with the new set. Those who also passed should go ahead to register at the centre close to them to be able to get their certificates and licences as qualified teachers,” he said.

Ajiboye gave assurance that TRCN would not back down on its position to flush out unregistered or unqualified teachers out of the education system by Dec. 31.

“It is not only TRCN’s position but the position of National Council on Education that has to be implemented. We will make sure we enforce the law and by January 2020, we will begin to move around for enforcement,” he said. (NAN)