FG moves to professionalise 250,000 unqualified teachers

The Federal Government has launched an ambitious move to overhaul the professional status of thousands of Nigerian teachers currently teaching without recognised teaching qualifications, with 250,000 serving teachers expected to benefit from a new six-month professionalisation programme beginning in October 2026.

The initiative, known as the Accelerated Teacher Professionalisation Pathway, ATPP, is designed to close long-standing qualification gaps in the nation’s teaching workforce without removing unqualified teachers from classrooms.

Under the programme, the National Teachers’ Institute, NTI, Kaduna, has been designated the coordinating secretariat by the Federal Ministry of Education, under the supervision of the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa.

The development represents one of the administration’s major interventions to strengthen the quality of basic and secondary education by ensuring that serving teachers who lack professional teaching qualifications are given a structured pathway to acquire them.

For years, the presence of teachers without professional qualifications and licences from the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, TRCN, has remained a major concern for education policymakers and stakeholders.

The ATPP is, however, designed to tackle the problem without disrupting the nation’s classrooms or throwing thousands of serving teachers out of employment.

Instead, the Federal Government intends to turn the qualification gap into a professionalisation opportunity, allowing affected teachers to acquire recognised credentials while remaining in service.
The programme will operate through two major qualification routes.

Serving teachers who possess university degrees in disciplines other than education will undertake the Postgraduate Diploma in Education, PGDE, while teachers entering from the National Diploma, ND, cadre will follow the Professional Diploma in Education, PDE route.

Both programmes will be delivered through a blended learning model combining self-paced digital instruction, virtual facilitated sessions, structured assessments and supervised teaching practice.

Unlike conventional programmes where teaching practice may be conducted at separate or simulated centres, the ATPP will assess teachers in their actual schools.

This means that candidates will be required to demonstrate their professional competence in real classroom situations, with their teaching practice subjected to structured supervision and verification.

The teaching practice component, which will last two months, is expected to be a critical test of whether the programme produces genuine improvement in classroom instruction rather than merely adding another qualification to teachers’ records.

The six-month programme comprises four months of intensive instruction followed by two months of supervised teaching practice.

Under the arrangement, each candidate will have a mentor and supervisor, while evidence of actual teaching, including lesson delivery, pupils’ work and learning materials, will form part of the candidate’s professional records.

Supervisor sign-offs will also be required to authenticate the practical component of the qualification.

NTI, which is Nigeria’s largest teacher-training institution, will coordinate the initiative in collaboration with UBEC, TRCN, the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council, NERDC, the National Senior Secondary Education Commission, NSSEC, the National Universities Commission, NUC, and other relevant institutions.

Rather than establishing a parallel administrative structure, the ATPP will utilise existing institutions and their statutory mandates, with NTI serving as the coordinating secretariat.

Preparations for the commencement of the programme have reached an advanced stage, with the academic framework for both the PGDE and PDE pathways already reviewed, validated and finalised.

The curriculum and learning modules were developed with contributions from about 40 content experts drawn from universities, colleges of education and relevant education agencies, including NTI, TRCN, NSSEC, UBEC and NERDC.

The programme architecture has also been mapped across the federal, state and local government levels, while work is continuing on the digital delivery system, teaching practice arrangements and engagement with partner institutions.

According to the organisers, the blended format is deliberate and is intended to ensure that teachers do not progress solely on the basis of online learning.

Each module will therefore move candidates through a cycle involving digital learning, facilitated interaction, assessment and practical application.
NTI, as the coordinating secretariat, will oversee curriculum coordination, content management and quality assurance in collaboration with UBEC and the programme’s Steering Committee.

The Federal Government is positioning the ATPP as a credible, affordable and time-bound route to professional qualification for serving teachers who currently lack formal teaching credentials.

The programme is expected to bring thousands of teachers into the professional standards framework regulated by TRCN, potentially creating a more uniformly qualified teaching workforce.

The initiative is being implemented under the education component of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, with the October 2026 launch expected to mark the beginning of a nationwide effort to close the professional qualification gap among serving teachers.

The media and communication strategy for the programme was recently deliberated by the Sub-Committee on Media and Communication, chaired by the Executive Secretary of NSSEC, Dr. Iyela Ajayi.

NTI was represented at the meeting by its Head of Public Relations and Protocol, Malam Yusha’u Ahmed.

With a target of 250,000 teachers, the ATPP could become one of the Federal Government’s most extensive interventions aimed at transforming the professional quality of Nigeria’s teaching workforce.