Teacher producing institutions to come under NCCE

The law establishing the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) will by all indications be amended to ensure that all teacher producing institutions come under the purview of the commission. The commission, it is also gathered, would be renamed National Commission for Teacher Education after the amendment. Chairman, NCCE Governing Board, Alhaji Muhammadu Maigari […]

The law establishing the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) will by all indications be amended to ensure that all teacher producing institutions come under the purview of the commission.

The commission, it is also gathered, would be renamed National Commission for Teacher Education after the amendment.

Chairman, NCCE Governing Board, Alhaji Muhammadu Maigari Dingyadi, said shortly after a meeting last week in Abuja that the commission would be empowered to keep an eye on teacher education and institutions that turn out teachers when its establishment act was amended by the National Assembly.

He said, “The matter is still in the National Assembly but we are following it up to ensure that it becomes law; the lawmakers are handling the matter. The rationale is to make sure that the commission takes care of teacher education in general. There are other institutions producing teachers not under the purview of this commission. So, we want anything concerning teacher education to be managed by the commission, and by way of extending the purview of the commission, it should include all professionals that are teacher-related.”

Alhaji Dingyadi also stated that the commission would be expanded to include departments that were hitherto placed as units under the supervision of some offices.

He said the issue of expansion of the commission was discussed at their previous board meeting, noting however that some members had some reservations on the need for expansion and the directives, it was generally agreed that some units be upgraded to departments in tune with realities on the ground.

He said proposal has been submitted for the creation of the office of Director of Procurement which used to be a unit under the office of the Executive Secretary, Department of Information and that of special duties.

“These departments could be found in other organizations like ours.  We considered our peculiar situation and decided to allow the management to come up with a more comprehensive submission on the departments they feel they need and resubmit to us.

“We have intention to expand, but we want to do it with a lot of caution taking into consideration the little resources we have, and of cause to work in consonance with sister organisations that have these types of departments,” he said.

The Governing Board chairman however said the board did not approve the request for the establishment of zonal offices to ease the work of the commission. He said the issue of zonal offices was brought at a committee level and it was agreed that they were vital but not needed at the moment.

He said, “We are looking into finances of the organization; we don’t want to be expanding too much at the expense of overburdening our little resources. We tried to make sure that we do things at the right time but for now we don’t have the intention of creation of zonal offices but if the need arises we will consider them.”

He further stated that NCCE would step up monitoring of all NCE awarding institutions and anyone found operating without permission would be closed, adding that the public would be enlightened on the need to patronize lawful higher institutions.

“Last year we had some closed, and we tried to publicize the legally established institutions to ensure that people don’t make the mistake of going to register with illegal institutions,” Maigari Dingyadi said.