Teachers’ council reiterates commitment to professionalism

Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria

The Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, Prof. Addison Wokocha, has reiterated its determination to ensure discipline and professionalism among teachers in the country.

The TRCH, he said, would ensure that teachers who violated the ethics of the teaching are punished according to the law guiding the profession and that of the country.

 Wokocha, who made this assertion during the induction organised for  students of Topmost College of Education, Ipaja, Lagos who have just completed their Professional Diploma in Education programme, added that TRCN would ensure that all teachers in the country are duly certified.

 The registrar said that in order to ensure strict adherence to professional ethics in the teaching, the council had established the Teachers Investigating Panel in all the 36 states of the federation and  the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal to instil discipline among teachers.

He therefore urged the graduating teachers to take the exercise with the highest level of seriousness and commitment to professionalism.

Wokocha, who said TRCN was established by Decree 31 of 1993 now TRCN Act CapT3 of 2004, added that the Act empowers the council to determine who teachers are as well as to determine what standards of knowledge and skills they must possessed before they could become professional teachers.

“In exercising this mandate, TRCN directs its vision to regulate teacher education, training and practice at all levels of the education system in order to match teacher quality, discipline, professionalism, reward and dignity with international standards,” he said.

Earlier in his welcome address, the college Provost, Dr. Mabel Odunayo, had reminded the inductees of the need to be licensed as professional teachers.

She stressed that apart from their educational qualification, it is mandatory for them to be licensed.

Odunayo told them not to see teaching as a profession of last resort but as a noble and profitable one.

Also, Chairman, Governing Council of the college, Mr. Wale Odunayo, said the institution was established to actualise the vision and mission of TRCN to professionalise teaching in the country.

He said, as a lecturer at Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Ijanikin, Lagos, he was denied promotion for six years because he did not have a certificate in education.

Odunayo, therefore, advised the newly inducted teachers to see the ceremony as a step towards promotion in their career.