Prof Josiah Ajiboye, the Registrar of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), says efforts and measures by the Council to standardise the teaching profession have paid off as countries Canada and England now use Nigeria as a reference point.
Prof Ajiboye stated this in Abuja on Tuesday at a one-day retreat on the State of Education in Nigeria organised by the Education Correspondent Association of Nigeria (ECAN) in Abuja.
He said the quality of Nigerian graduates, and by extension, Nigerian teachers, have attracted those countries and wanted to engage Nigerian teachers.
“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 a letter from the UK from the head of their teaching council,” he said.
“She sends a message for a 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 in all these situations, we still have the best graduates.”
Ajiboye called on the media to help the country amplify the positive values of the education sector so that foreign countries could come in, explore and invest.
He emphasised the need to change the narrative by not dwelling on the negatives capable of overwhelming the country.
According to him, Nigerians should always emphasise the positive values of the sector.
He said that despite the challenges the education sector faced, the quality of graduates produced could compete favourably worldwide.
“Nigeria’s education is among the best worldwide as our graduates are sort after globally,” the TRCN Registrar said.
“Nigeria’s education is among the best in the world today; if not, why are Nigerian professionals going outside the country?
“You see thousands of Nigerians everywhere you go; Nigerian graduates are well sought after.”
“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?
At the retreat, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), commended ECAN members on their roles in projecting the country’s image, especially in the education sector.
Oloyede, who was represented by Dr Fabian Benjamin, the Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, JAMB, 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 for 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 a certain percentage can be paid by the Federal Government so 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.
Prof Ibrahim Wushishi, the Registrar of the National Examination Council (NECO), who spoke on the global acceptability of the NECO certificate, said its certificate had global recognition through an educational assessment body.
“NECO is a strong member of the International Association for Educational Assessment, and we play a vital role in the global examination assessment,” Pro Wushishi said.
“So candidates that took their NECO examinations are being admitted into secondary and tertiary institutions in foreign countries like the 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 the authenticity of our results,” he said.
Wushishi, however, advised Nigerians not to take the education sector for granted, saying that the sector should be projected in a good light to the world.
