The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has announced plans to enforce full professional certification and licensing of teachers in Nigeria by December 2027.
The Council’s Registrar, Dr Ronke Soyombo, disclosed this in an exclusive interview Monitored by The News Chronicle on Thursday, saying the move is part of ongoing reforms aimed at restoring professionalism, strengthening teaching standards and ensuring that only qualified practitioners remain in Nigerian classrooms.
Soyombo said the TRCN is targeting at least 75 percent professional certification among teachers by the end of 2026. She added that schools would increasingly be required to demonstrate compliance with the certification requirement.
According to her, the Council will monitor schools seeking to register candidates for public examinations, including National Examinations Council (NECO) examinations, to determine whether they meet the 75 percent professional certification threshold.
“By December 2027, no teacher will be allowed to remain in the classroom without a valid TRCN licence,” Soyombo said.
She also announced changes to the Council’s Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE), explaining that candidates would now be assessed according to the academic qualification they present for registration.
Under the new integrated examination system, a PhD holder will take a PhD-level examination, a first-degree holder will take a degree-level examination, while an NCE holder will take an NCE-level examination.
Soyombo said the new examination structure would commence with the November examination.
She explained that the date a candidate obtained a qualification would be critical in determining the appropriate level of examination. A candidate who sits for the examination as an NCE holder, for instance, cannot later obtain a doctorate and use it to claim that the earlier examination was conducted at PhD level.
“If the doctorate was obtained before the examination, the candidate will need to sit for the appropriate examination to register as a PhD holder,” she said.
The Registrar further disclosed that the TRCN is upgrading the technology used for its certification examinations.
She said the Council inherited a testing platform that could accommodate only about 120 candidates at a time, forcing examinations to be conducted over several days as demand increased.
However, the new platform can reportedly accommodate up to 5,000 candidates simultaneously, allowing the Council to conduct examinations across different states, subject to the availability and capacity of Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres.
The growing demand for professional certification was highlighted during the May 2026 examination, which attracted more than 26,000 candidates nationwide.
Soyombo added that the Council was also considering different categories and areas of specialisation within the education sector as it develops its emerging professional framework.
She said the reforms were intended to provide clearer professional standards and ensure that Nigeria’s teaching workforce meets the required qualifications and regulatory standards.
