The Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Prof. Josiah Ajiboye has said that, the fact that Nigerian graduates were being sought after globally, was an indication that its educational system was still one of the best.
Ajiboye, disclosed this on Tuesday, November 29, 2022, during a one-day retreat on the State of Education in Nigeria organised by the Education Correspondents’ Association of Nigeria (ECAN) in Abuja.
He said, despite challenges facing Nigeria’s education system, the country had been churning out pacesetters all over the globe, so it was not as bad as it was being portrayed:
“Our graduates are competing favourably across the world due to the increasing quality of education as evident in the quality of graduates. We have not allowed our challenges to limit our progress.
“Just recently, I signed a professional standing for over 260 Nigerians going to teach in Canada. The United Kingdom (UK) is also making move to take Nigerian teachers.
“Undoubtedly, we have challenges of inadequate infrastructure, industrial actions by lecturers, out-of-school children and several others. In all these, we are still the best. We must accentuate the positives and stop destroying the image of the country through negativities because all nations have challenges”, he said.
On his part, the Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede commended the association on their roles in projecting the image of the country, especially in the education sector.
Oloyede, who was represented by the Head, Public Affairs and Protocol, JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, called for the introduction of a National Education Insurance Scheme to address the problem of access, especially in state universities.
“The Federal Government put in place state institutions to address the need of admission access because one of the major problems is spaces in our institutions and most candidates cannot afford these institutions.
“The country should be able to support the education scheme whereby certain percentage can be paid by the Federal Government so that subscribers can attend private institutions,” he said.
On the issue of lowering cut-off marks, he explained that the cut-off mark was a minimum benchmark that institutions must not go below which did not affect education standards.
Also speaking, the Registrar, National Examination Council (NECO), Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi disclosed that NECO certificates were now being recognized globally and could be used to gain admission into tertiary institutions in countries like Canada, Germany, India, China, U.S amongst others.
“NECO is a strong member of the International Association for Educational Assessment, and we play a vital role in the global assessment of examination.
“So, candidates that took their NECO examinations are being admitted into secondary and tertiary institutions in foreign countries like in U.S, Canada, Germany, India, China, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Sweden and they write the council to authenticate the results
He assured that NECO will continue to deliver quality services to Nigerians, in addition to supporting of agencies.
“In fact, between January to August 2022, we received 490 requests from more than 50 countries across the world to confirm the authenticity of our results,” Wushishi informed.
