The Federal Government has commenced preparations for the Accelerated Teacher Professionalization Pathway, a six-month program designed to equip serving teachers without professional teaching qualifications with recognized credentials.
In a statement issued on Friday, the National Teachers’ Institute said it had been mandated to coordinate the initiative, which is expected to engage “250,000 Nigerian teachers, under the supervision of the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa.”
The statement said the “sole aim of the ATPP is to drive the Federal Government’s intention to professionalize non-professional Nigerian teachers and bridge their qualification gaps.”
The initiative is expected to address what the NTI described as a “long-standing structural weakness” in Nigeria’s basic education system, where a significant number of teachers have been teaching without professional qualifications.
The institute said the situation had been a concern to policymakers and other stakeholders because some of the affected teachers were neither licensed by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria nor within the professional standards enforced by the council.
The NTI, under the leadership of its Director and Chief Executive, Prof. Sadiya Sani Daura, has been designated as the coordinating secretariat for the program.
It will work with the Universal Basic Education Commission, TRCN, Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council, National Senior Secondary Education Commission, National Universities Commission, and other relevant institutions, alongside the Federal Ministry of Education.
The statement said the program was designed to “fill an existing gap without phasing out these teachers from the classroom,” adding that it would instead “empower and professionalize them.”
The ATPP will be delivered through two routes—the Postgraduate Diploma in Education for serving teachers who hold degrees in non-education disciplines and the Professional Diploma in Education for serving teachers entering from the National Diploma cadre.
Both routes will combine self-paced digital content, virtual facilitated sessions, structured assessment checkpoints, and supervised teaching practice.
Unlike simulated training arrangements, the teaching practice will be verified in the teachers’ own schools.
The NTI said it would deliver the program through existing mandated institutions rather than establish a parallel project unit.
According to the statement, the academic preparations for the program have substantially been completed, with the curriculum frameworks for both routes reviewed, validated, and finalized.
Module development was undertaken by a national panel of approximately 40 content experts drawn from universities, colleges of education, and relevant agencies, including NTI, TRCN, NSSEC, UBEC, and NERDC.
