At least, 16,614 candidates sat for the November Diet of the Teachers’ Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE), administered by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) across the country.
Director, Certification and Licensing, TRCN, Dr Jacinta Ezeahurukwe, made this known on Saturday, during monitoring of the exercise alongside officials from the Federal Ministry of Education in Abuja.
She noted that the conduct of the examination was seamless, noting a total of 16,614 candidates registered to participate in the examination nationwide.
She noted that the PQE is designed to test the professional knowledge of those in the teaching profession.
According to her, it was a prerequisite for licensing and certification of teachers before being allowed to teach in the classrooms in Nigeria.
While giving further insight into the conduct of the examination, she revealed that some technological innovations have been introduced to make the exercise more seamless.
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According to Dr. Ezeahurukwe, TRCN recently introduced an app which generates examination numbers for the candidates, as against the previous exercise when such numbers are provided manually.
She explained that very soon all candidates would have to enroll online and generate their examination details themselves.
“You are aware that we introduced an App that detects impersonation, it ensures that it is only the people that registered for this examination that would write it, which we also use for accreditation.
“Apart from that we used to give them their numbers manually but now we have ensured that the computer generates the number, this is to ensure the sanctity of the examination so that nobody does anything funny.
“The registration numbers was later communicated to the candidates.
“We are getting to a point where every candidate will be registering online, each year we improve on our processes, as you can see today the exam is more seamless than before because we have also tried to manage the crowd,”Ezeahurukwe told reporters.
Meanwhile the Acting Registrar/Chief Executive Officer, of TRCN, Dr Stella-Maria Nwokeocha, had lamented the difficulties being faced by the Council following the decision of the Federal Government to remove them its funding list.
She disclosed that this has forced the to cut down its operational cost, and merely depend on development partners to exist.
According to her, the agency is now placed in a difficult situation having to struggle to train staff and pay their emoluments.
She said, “We met so many challenges but we try to cut down on cost, everything boils down to sacrifice, for instance, staff of the agency I praise them for that because they have been very understanding.
“For something like training, we had to cut down on drastically on that, instead we do group training.
“We are calling for improved funding, I have to be open with you, some development partners are helping us in certain ways, but we cannot rely on that alone, we are asking the government to put us back in its funding plan, even if they cannot put us back, they can decide to take up payment of staff salaries.”
NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
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