Director General and Chief Executive, National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), Professor Garba Dahuwa Azare, has called on Federal government to as a matter of urgency upgrade the institute to full time university of education for distance learning.
Professor Azare stated that the Institute was established to train, retrain and certifiy teachers at all levels, using distance learning techniques.
Speaking when he received Executive Committee members of the Kaduna state council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) on courtesy call in his office Thursday, the NTI boss said the need to upgrade the institute to university has become necessary since its affiliation to other universities has increased the expenses of running its various programme.
He stated that the affiliation has made the courses more expensive as well as out of reach of many prospective teachers.
Prof. Azare disclosed that 25,000 backlog of certificates were recently released to those who passed out of the institute some years ago.
“Upgrading the Institute to university will certainly enable many teachers to benefit from the training programmes, they will have more access and the courses will be cost effective and a pride place for teachers being the only single mode institution dedicated to teacher education in Nigeria
“We train teachers all over the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. We also undertake what we call pivotal training of grade two teachers to NCE holders.
“We have collected a backlog of 25,000 PGDE certificates from Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto. The certificates have been dispatched to the graduands through our state offices.
“The Institute has just completed development and installation of a brand new and robust results’ processing software based on the latest technology with a view to tracking results processing,” Professor Azare said.
