The distribution of 1996 primary school teachers indicates that 0.6% of males and 0.9% of females were graduates with teaching qualification while 0.4% of females and 0.4% of males were graduates without teaching qualification. Among the NCE teachers 13.5% were males and 19.9% were females. Holders of Teachers Grade II certificate were more than any other group. About 20% of the teachers were males and 18.7% were females. There were a total of 19.7% teachers who did not have any known teaching qualification.

Table 34

SOURCE: STATISTICS DIVISION, FME., ABUJA.

Fig. J

Using NCE as the minimum teaching qualification, the percentage of certified teachers is still low. However there has been a rapid change from 2.6% for male in 1990 to 16.8% in 1996 and from 2.0% for female in 1990 to 21.4% in 1996. The rapid growth rate can be attributed to the various mechanisms which have been put in place to improve the training of teachers while still in the service.

The National Teachers Institute NCE – distance Learning System produced a total of 38,486 graduates from 1993 to 1996. Also enrolment in the NCE(DLS) of NTI for 1997 was 13,593 for male and 16,987 for female.

Also formal training goes on in designated institutions and education resources centres. At present, there are 58 colleges of education, 19 are owned by the Federal government, 36 by the States Governments and 3 are owned by private bodies. All the 58 colleges of education are supervised by the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), whose responsibility is maintenance of standards, supervision and accreditation of courses and programmes in the institutions.

The distribution of students enrolment in the Colleges of Education from 1990 to 1996 is given below.

Table 35

DISTRIBUTION OF STUDENTS ENOLMENT IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION BY YEAR AND SEX 1991/92–1996/97