To Teach in Primary School in Nigeria:
In the past, to teach in primary school a person needed a Teacher Certificate Grade II (TCGDII) from four years of secondary school at a Grade II Teacher-training college. These were phased out after 1998, when the Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) became the required diploma for all primary and junior secondary school teachers. In 1996, out of approximately 420,000 primary school teachers in the country, about 80 percent had either the NCE or TCGDII (equally divided between the two).
The government created the National Teachers Institute (NTI) in 1978 to conduct programs that would upgrade teacher qualifications to the NCE level, with most of this training carried out by distance learning. Between 1993 and 1996, the NTI graduated 34,486 in their NCE distance learning programs. In 2000, it trained 20,000 teachers. A Bachelor of Education program with NTI received approval by the government at the end of 2000. NTI also conducts workshops and conferences on curriculum development and in other areas of teacher training.
