No fewer than 11,350 candidates across the country has sat for the May Diet of the Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE), organised by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN).

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Andrew Adejo, while monitoring the conduct of the examination at Sascon International School, expressed satisfaction saying the examination had witnessed some level of improvements.

Adejo, who commended the new technology introduced by the council to get the authenticity of the certificate of teachers, saying this would go a long way to weed out quackery from the system.

According to him, last year we just moved from accreditation and candidates go straight to write but this year, accreditation has a double level.

” This year candidates will have to first do the accreditation, fill the form and you also cross-check your slip with the APP that TRCN has developed to give it authenticity.

”So I think they are increasing on incremental basis every year on the process for PQE for teachers.

”The federal government is making efforts to weed out quacks but you know it is very difficult but this exam is part of the way we can weed out quacks.

”We are insisting that before you can be a teacher in every school, you must meet the basic minimum standard . As at today, at the junior and senior secondary as well as early childhood school levels, quackery is reducing,” he said

He said the ministry was working on cleaning the database so as to have less quacks in the profession so that quackery does not affect the standard and quality of the country’s education.

He, therefore, charged state and federal educational quality assurance team to ensure teachers have the required qualifications and skills to teach.

Meanwhile, the Registrar of TRCN, Prof. Josiah Ajiboye said the report from centres across the country indicated hitch free process.

Ajiboye commended the candidates for comporting themselves before and during the exams saying that teachers were now realising the importance of the PQE.

”There has been improvement in the accreditation process because part of what we did was to develop an APP to accredit the candidates and this is working perfectly well.

” For this year, we have over 11,350, with Lagos having the highest with 1, 500 candidates followed by FCT, Kebbi state has the lowest candidates.

” So, what we did is to combine such state with other states with lower candidates,” he sy.

The registrar said that the council was leveraging on technology for it’s operations to track quackery while also putting necessary measures to weed out quacks through its school monitoring programme mechanism.

Speaking with some of the candidates, they attested to that fact that the technology introduced by the council had help in checking some of the discrepancies in its accreditation processes.

On of the candidates, Idongesit Ben, said that the exam was conducted smoothly without any technical hitches.

Ben said that though the exams were a bit difficult as it was her first time but hoping to succeed after the outcome of the exams.

” We had 60 questions to answer which were made up of test and measurements, basic mathematics, English, educational psychology and sociology.

”The exams was a little bit difficult for me because it was not what I expected having read through the TRCN past questions but I hope to come out successful,” she said.

On her part, Mrs Titilope Yunusa, writing for the second time, said the exam was better than her first attempt.

”This is my second time of writing this exam and I don’t want to fail this time around. I experienced difficulties in my first attempt because I don’t really know how to operate the computers.

” But now I have learnt the operations of a computer system and can now operate it and that is why I am here to take the examination again and I am confidence of passing the exams this time,” she said. (NAN)