Dr. Jacinta Ezeahurukwe, the Director of Certification and Licensing at TRCN, explained to reporters in Abuja that this examination is crucial for licensing teachers and making sure they are competent before entering the four corners of the classrooms.
She said, “TRCN PQE is taking place all over the nation; it started on November 23 in some states; some other states wrote yesterday; and today the remaining states are writing.
“In all, we have 15,750 teachers writing the examination for Batch B across the country. There was a time, we conducted exams for over 100,000 candidates. Our target is for those that have not registered.
“The exam is mandatory because teaching is a profession, and for every profession, there must be a professional qualifying examination.
“One of the features of a profession is that apart from getting the academic qualification, the person must have a qualifying examination and must be registered and licensed.
“If you don’t write this examination, how do we know you are qualified to be registered as a teacher? So this examination is not testing subject knowledge; it’s testing the professional knowledge of the teaching profession.’
Ezeahurukwe added that the qualifying examination provided the foundational knowledge that a teacher must possess and exhibit, saying this is however contained in the teachers’ professional standards.
She, therefore, said that the results were expected to be out in two weeks.
“This is a computer exam and we expect that as candidates are writing the computers are marking. However, we still take our time to sieve out the results, analyse it, look at it and have the management to consider it and approve.
“The exams written in batches will not in any way lead to malpractice, as no two persons write the same exams...
Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, David Adejo, praised the ongoing process and expressed hopethat it will increase the overall quality of teachers across the country.
