By Felix Khanoba
The United Kingdom has begun moves to attract professional teachers in Nigeria to the country.
Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, made this known at a one-day retreat on the State of Education in Nigeria organised by the Education Correspondent Association of Nigeria (ECAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
The TRCN’s boss urged Nigerians to stop portraying the nation’s education sector in bad light in the global scene.
According to him, Nigerians should always emphasise the positive values of the sector.
He said that in spite of the challenges of education sector was faced with the quality of graduates produced could compete favourably all over the world.
“Nigeria’s education is among the best all over the world as our graduates are sort after globally.
“Nigeria’s education is among one of the best in the world as at today, if not, why are Nigerian professionals going outside the country?
“You see thousands of Nigerians everywhere you go; Nigerian graduates are well sort out for.
“Even as of today, if you look at the quality of our graduates, they are people that can compete with other people all over the world. People will always tell you the standard is falling but who is setting the standards.
“Even this year alone, I have signed letters of professional standing for over 260 Nigerians going to teach in Canada alone and as of this morning; we have letter from the UK from head of their teaching council.
“She sends a message for pro-former letter of professional standing because they want to start taking Nigerian teachers massively.
“If anybody is telling you are not doing well, though we have our challenges but in all these situations, we still have the best graduates,” he said.
Ajiboye called on the media to help the country in amplifying the positive values of the sector so that foreign countries would be able to come in, explore and invest.
He, therefore, emphasised on the need to change the narrative by not dwelling on the negatives capable of overwhelming the country.
Also speaking at the event, Registrar of National Examinations Council (NECO), Prof. Dantani Ibrahim, said the certificates of the examination body are fully accepted across the world which also testified to the quality of the Nigerian education system.
Wushishi, who was confered with an award of excellence by ECAN for his several achievements since assuming office, said the examination body would soon roll out a software on its website that will allow individuals and organisations within and outside the shores of the country to verify its certificates with ease.
He said as a major stakeholder in international association of educational assessment, will leave no stone unturned in ensuring the standard and quality of its exams are not compromised.
His words : “NECO is a strong member of the International Association for Educational Assessment and we play a vital role in the global assessment of examination.
“So candidates that took their NECO examinations are being admitted into secondary and tertiary institutions in foreign countries like in U.S, Canada , Germany, India, China, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Sweden and they write the council to authenticate the results from NECO.
“In fact, between January to August 2022, we received 490 requests from more than 50 countries across the world to confirm authenticity of our results,” he said.
On his part, Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, commended the association on their roles in projecting the image of the country, especially in the education sector.
Oloyede, who was represented by the Head, Public Affairs and Protocol, JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin called for the introduction of a National Education Insurance Scheme to address the problem of access, especially in state universities.
“The Federal Government put in place state institutions to address the need of admission access because one of the major problems is spaces in our institutions and most candidates cannot afford these institutions.
“The country should be able to support the education scheme whereby certain percentage can be paid by the Federal Government so that subscribers can attend private institutions,” he said.
On the issue of lowering cut-off marks, he said that the cut-off mark was a minimum benchmark that institutions must not go below which did not affect education standards.
Earlier, Chairman of ECAN, Mr Chuks Ukwuatu, said the retreat was organised to brainstorm on the challenges facing the nation’s education sector and bring to the fore achievements also recorded.
The event also witnessed presentation by the Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Rasheed, who was represented by the Director, Academic Planning, Dr Noel Saliu.
The NUC boss highlighted various steps taken by the Commission to bridge the gap between Nigerian universitoes and industries.
