Federal Government Plans To Abolish NCE As Teaching Qualification In Nigeria

THE Federal Government, on Thursday, proposed a plan to phase out colleges of education and abolish the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE)as the basic requirement for teaching in secondary and primary schools in Nigeria.

Minister of State for Education, Mr Kenneth Gbagi, gave this hint in Abuja while inaugurating the technical committee on the establishment of six newfederal universities and the future of colleges of education, polytechnics, and mono-discipline universities in Nigeria.

The 11-man technical committee is headed by the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie, while the Chief Executive Officer and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, is to serve as the secretary. The committee has up till Monday, next week, tosubmit its report.

Inaugurating the committee, the minister said: “We are on the verge of whether we should phase out the colleges of education or upgrade them to degree-awarding institutions or convert them to purely technical schools. One of the universities we are going to set up now will be to train teachers for the upper echelon of education,” adding that “it is no longer fashionable for us to have this teacher training stuff with colleges of education. So, come up with an in-depth arrangement as to what we intendto do.”

He disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan had directed that the committee be set up to work out modalities for the establishment of the proposed six universities, one in each of the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria, especially in states that do not such federal institutions.