The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has supported the Nigerian Government’s Accelerated Teacher Professionalisation Pathway (ATPP), through which about 250,000 serving teachers without professional qualifications are expected to pursue training and professional licensing.
Head of Media, TRCN, Esther Chiwar, said in a statement that the ATPP would be conducted in cohorts to provide untrained teachers in public and private schools with professional training and a pathway to certification and licensing.
“Candidates who passed the prescribed ATPP examination will be eligible to sit for the Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE) organised by TRCN before they are registered as qualified Teachers and issued licenses,” she said.
Chiwar said the programme was intended to address the presence of teachers in classrooms who had academic qualifications in their subject areas but had not undergone recognised teacher-training programmes or obtained professional teaching licences.
“The ATPP is intended to close that gap while allowing teachers to remain in service,” she said.
She explained that the six-month programme offered two routes: the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) for graduates in non-education disciplines and the Professional Diploma in Education (PDE) for those from the National Diploma cadre.
“Both combine four months of blended learning — self-paced online modules, virtual facilitation and assessments — with two months of supervised teaching practice in the teachers’ own schools.
Successful participants will then sit the TRCN Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE), with certification and licensing covered by the programme fee,” she said.
Chiwar said the ATPP would involve about 250,000 teachers nationwide, mapped across federal, state and local levels.
The initiative, led by the Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, is being coordinated by a Technical Working Group chaired by Professor Suwaiba Ahmad.
TRCN and the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), Kaduna, are expected to be involved in implementation, with support from the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC), Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) and National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE).
