Edo State government has approved the take-off of the Tayo Akpata University of Education, Ekiadolor, in a bid to upgrade the qualities of teachers and improve the quality of learning in schools.

Speaking during the presentation of a report by Prof Dennis Agbonlahor Committee set up by the state government to evaluate the state-owned institutions of higher learning, Governor Oshiomhole said the upgrading Ekiadolor to a university is to ensure that NCE teachers are not in the state’s secondary schools.

“Because the quality of teachers is important, my view is that to teach in our secondary schools: junior and senior secondary schools, we must have Bachelor of Education (B.ED) so that the students will be in very good hands.”

According to Oshiomhole, “the mass failure in exam is not by accident. If pupils have not learnt, it might as well be because the teachers have not taught. So, that is the whole idea. We must scale down on our NCE requirements.”

“The real quality objective is that we want to phase out NCE because no matter what anybody says, the quality of our teachers is extremely important. Look at the level of performance in WAEC, NECO, JAMB and all that you have to go through with universities now setting up another exam because when you look at the failure rate, somebody is probably trying to play with standard, to pass people who ordinarily didn’t pass, so universities now do their own in-house examination.” (TVC)

•Photo shows Governor Oshiomhole.