The National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) Kaduna, says it is currently training 69,000 students nationwide to become qualified and certified teachers.

This is being done through NCE, BED and PGDE programmes by Distance Learning System across the country.

The Director and Chief Executive of the Institute, Professor Musa Maitafsir, disclosed this on Friday in Abuja on the sidelines of the closing ceremony of the 2022 Capacity Building Workshop Teachers.

Mr Maitafsir also said that the Institute was currently upgrading 18,367 teachers to obtain certified teaching qualifications in Birnin, Adamawa and Yobe states.

He said that the training was being conducted under the Emergency Teacher Upgrading Programme ( (ETUP), with the active collaboration of the Federal Ministry of Education and the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) and UNICEF.

Mr Maitafsir said:” A total of 1,919 out of the said number of unqualified teachers have successfully acquired PGDE certificates in August, 2022.

“They will sit for professional Qualifying Examinations organised by TRCN on the 9th and 10th of September, 2022.

“The remaining candidates will complete their studies by the end of December, this year.

“This gesture needs to be extended to the entire regions of the country, so as to mould the unqualified and quack teachers currently impersonating teachers in some schools and colleges throughout the country.”

Mr Maitafsir stated that the Institute was collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Education and UNICEF under the Global Partnership for Education ( GPE ).

“We have developed and are currently producing remote learning materials in English and Mathematics for pupils of primary 1 to 6 and JSS 1 to 3.

“It is a GPE intervention given to 16 states i.e. Bauchi, Benue, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Plateau, Niger, Sokoto, Taraba and Zamfara.

“This is to mitigate learning loss as a result of schools’ closure due to COVID-19 using remote learning materials of English and Mathematics domesticated in Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo.

“The materials are targeted to reach pupils of 43,000 schools in the most marginalised communities to complement loss of learning or bridge the gap created due to COVID-19 lockdown of schools in the intervention states.”

The NTI Chief Executive said that the contents were also contextualised for airing on radio and television for wider coverage in all the 36 states and FCT.

This, Mr Maitafsir said, “was in an attempt to embrace the new normal situation of teaching and learning in Nigeria.” 

(NAN)