The federal agency regulating teaching in the country, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), has established a Teachers Investigating Panel (TIP) in every state of the federation and a Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal (TDT) at TRCN headquarters in Abuja, to identify offending teachers and make them face the law.

Registrar of the TRCN, Professor Addision Mark Wokocha, who disclosed this in Jos at the induction ceremony of 419 graduands of the Faculty of Education, University of Jos, said the bodies would raise the professional ethical standards and productivity among teachers in order to reposition teaching profession in Nigeria to meet international best practices.

Wokocha said TRCN is mandated to promote excellence in education through effective registration, certification and licensing of teachers and to promote professionalism through accreditation, monitoring and supervision of teacher education programmes. Vice Chancellor of the University of Jos, Prof. Hayward Babale Mafuyai, who presented the inductees, said the event was a public recognition of teaching as an important profession in its own right, considering that no educational system can rise above the quality of its teachers.

Professor Mafuyai, who was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics), Professor Bejamin Tagbo Ugwu, advised students of education and practicing teachers to take teaching seriously and to approach it with every sense of responsibility.