Fg To Enrol 2.9m Pupils In Schools – Minister, Says Unqualified, Registered Teachers Will Not Be Allowed To Teach

Source: thewillnigeria.com

BEVERLY HILLS, AUGUST 30, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has revealed that it plans to enrol about 2.9 million pupils annually in four years to reduce the figure of out-of-school children in Nigeria.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, at the presentation of “Education for change,” a Ministerial Strategic Plan (2016-2019) to stakeholders in Abuja, addind that government would urgently raise the national Net Enrollment Rate (NER) to ensure that all out-of-school children are enrolled in basic education schools in the next four years.

He disclosed that Nigeria currently has the highest number of out of school children in the world with 11. 4 million out–of–school children out of the 20 million worldwide saying 60 per cent of the 11.4 million out-of-school children in Nigeria are girls adding that only 3.1 million or 17 per cent nomadic children of school-age had access to basic education despite decades of intervention.

“Nigeria has the highest number of out of school children in the world with 11. 4 million out- of-school children of the 20 million worldwide,” he said.

“These include the girl-child, Almajiri-child, children of nomadic pastoralists and migrant fishermen and more recently the children displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency.

“60 per cent of the 11.4 million out-of-school children in Nigeria are girls. Only a fraction (17 per cent) of the 3.1 million nomadic children of school-age has access to basic education despite decades of intervention.

Similarly, only a small proportion of the FME's 20120 estimate of 9.5 million Almajiri children have access to any form of basic education.”

In the same vein, Adamu declared that only qualified teachers, who were duly registered, would be allowed to teach in the country to ensure professionalism.

“Teacher education itself is dying simply because non-professionals have now become teachers,” Adamu said, while briefing newsman on the side-lines of the presentation of the draft roadmap.

“Therefore, the professionalization and registration of teachers will help make sure that the profession is reorganized with quacks kicked out.

“So nobody should be employed as a teacher if he or she does not have a teaching qualification; there is no magic if you are not qualified as a teacher: you cannot teach.”

According to the Minister, teaching qualification means the person has undergone the course of philosophy of education and the method of teaching adding that the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TCN) was in the forefront of ensuring that only qualified and registered teachers would be allowed to teach in Nigeria.

Story by David Oputah