TRCN: Teachers must re-train to renew licence

Registrar of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Prof. Josiah Ajiboye has said continuous professional development has become mandatory for teachers to be able to renew their licence.

He spoke during a zoom meeting to launch the training of 12,000 public school teachers by Teach for Nigeria (TFN), in collaboration with Profuturo, a digital educational initiative.

Ajiboye said: “The Teachers Registration Council has actually developed a programme where teachers are going to renew their licences of operation, they will be made to submit their profile so that they will be able to showcase the training programme they have attended and how that programme has impacted on their teaching activities.”

The TRCN chief praised TFN for the initiative which he said would help many teachers upskill.

Chief Executive Officer, TFN, Folawe Omikunle said 203 TFN Fellows would be trained to cascade the training of teachers in schools where they serve.

She said TFN, a non-profit organisation that trains passionate people as teachers and places them in underserved communities, was partnering the Telefónica Foundation and “La Caixa” Foundation and Empieza por Educar, which funds Profuturo to run the five-modular training that would expose the teachers to digital and other relevant pedagogical skills.

She added that selection would be based on interest on the part of the teachers.

“The first cohort of teachers will be the ones who are genuinely interested and passionate. It will be delivered in such a way that it will be cascaded through our fellows who are in the communities. The training will be in five modules,” she said.

General Manager of ProFuturo, Magdalena Brier said the training would bridge the digital divide, which Profuturo is out to counter.

¨Schools throughout the world have been closed, but education cannot wait. The future of millions of children depends on it. In this context, we must resort to the power of remote digital education, which today has more meaning than ever. ProFuturo has been working in this field for nearly four years, taking digital education to every corner of the world to prepare teachers and students for the challenges of the digital era. We are happy to put our expertise to good use in this joint programme. We must all work together to prevent the already existing educational gap from widening due to a new digital gap,” she said.

Teachers from Ogun, Kaduna and Lagos states, where TFN operates, will benefit from the training.

Lauding the initiative, Ogun State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Sidi Osho, represented by the Director, Primary Education, Ogun State Ministry of Education, Dr. Lanloye said TFN Fellows had impacted positively on the state.

Special Adviser to Governor Dapo Abiodun on Education, Mrs. Ronke Soyombo added that TFN Fellows were used to kickstand the state’s e-learning programme as they were well trained.