The Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, has sought for the continuous support of stakeholders including the media to ensure the elimination of quackery from the education sector.

Ajiboye disclosed this in Karu on Friday at a one-day Workshop organised by TRCN for education correspondents with the theme: ” Sustaining Gains of Certification in Nigeria’s Teaching Profession”.

He said that no nation could grow without quality education produced by quality teachers, hence the need to focus on education quality in the country.

According to him, teachers own the keys to development as we produce all other professionals so quality education is driven by quality teachers.

” In country like Finland, every qualification to teaching is Masters degree and do you know how they select their teachers, it is from the secondary school.

” They selected the best of the best , it is a stringent process to get into teaching.

” In our country, we have to be interested in the quality of teachers. We should not allow the politicians to go and begin to bring people into teaching and say let them manage.

” This is not right, the country cannot progress in this way and that is why we have started certain programmes in the past few years,” he said.

The registrar commended the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, for the role played in ensuring that teaching profession was given a facelift through the approvals of welfare packages for teachers.

He added that the council had also increased the training of teachers in 24 states across the country from 30,000 to 45,000 teachers to deliver 21st century education and ensure professionalism in the sector.

“The minister has approved 45,000 teachers to be trained across 24 states, it was initially 30,000 before. We have done the first leg of the training of 7,500 teachers.

” If medical doctors or an engineer make mistakes, one life is destroyed but if a teacher makes a mistake, it is a generational mistake.

“So we must join forces to rescue this nation from quackery to deliver 21st century education for the country,” he added.

Also, Mr Chuks Ukwuatu, Chairman, Education Correspondent Association of Nigeria (ECAN) commended the efforts of the council in promoting excellence in the sector through effective registration and licencing of teachers.

Ukwuatu said that these efforts were laudable as it had helped in promoting professionalism in the system.

He added that it had also restored a new hope of sanity in the sector both presently and in the future. (NAN)