By Joseph Erunke, Abuja
The Federal Government has launched an ambitious move to overhaul the professional status of thousands of Nigerian teachers currently teaching without recognised teaching qualifications, with 250,000 serving teachers expected to benefit from a new six-month professionalisation programme beginning in October 2026.
The initiative, known as the Accelerated Teacher Professionalisation Pathway, ATPP, is designed to close long-standing qualification gaps in the nation’s teaching workforce without removing unqualified teachers from classrooms.
Under the programme, the National Teachers’ Institute, NTI, Kaduna, has been designated the coordinating secretariat by the Federal Ministry of Education, under the supervision of the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa.
The development represents one of the administration’s major interventions to strengthen the quality of basic and secondary education by ensuring that serving teachers who lack professional teaching qualifications are given a structured pathway to acquire them.
