Ibadan – The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, TRCN, has appealed to the Federal Government to reconsider its decision to withdraw from funding it and some other bodies affected.
Recall that the Federal Government had last week announced its decision to withdraw from funding the TRCN, The Nursing and Midwifery Council, and the Pharmacist Council of Nigeria among others.
This, according to the Federal Government is to save N27.72 billion in budgetary allocations for the year 2024.
But in its reaction on The Polity, a Petals 102.3 FM Ibadan Morning Show with Adebisi Ogunjimi, TRCN, through its Registrar/Chief Executive Officer, Professor ‘Segun Ajiboye, expressed surprise at the latest development asking how a government can stop funding a regulatory body.
”It’s a big surprise to us because, in the first instance, you will not expect a regulatory body not to be funded by the government if the regulatory body is expected to perform its functions very well.
But if you now expect a regulatory body to start making resources from the people it is supposed to be regulating, I think this is a problem and that is what TRCN has been confronting since January”.
Professor Ajiboye said the decision will in no small measure impact negatively on the activities of the Council as it might no longer be able to carry out some of its functions effectively.
”The decision has really impacted negatively on us at TRCN, in the first instance, we have to pay the salaries of all staff, and even with the impending salary increase, I don’t know how an organization like this is expected to cope. So many of the other agencies affected have not been able to pay salaries since January but, in TRCN, we’ve been able to manage the salaries of our staff since the stoppage of funds in January”.
The TRCN boss appealed to the government to rescind its decision and consider paying at least salaries and other overhead expenses of the bodies as the burden of funding will deny the members from enjoying benefits like training.
”Most of the training programs we used to have, we will no longer be able to organize them for the Teachers, for example, we have the mandatory Continued Professional Development for Teachers, we used to have the Digital Literacy Training for Teachers and all these have been put in abeyance for now because the only thing we can concentrate on is how to pay salaries of staff and how to fulfill our obligations in terms of printing of certificates and licenses”.
Professor Ajiboye who noted that Regulatory bodies across the world are funded by governments to enable them to function maximally, appealed to the Federal Government to revisit the decision so Nigeria will not be a difference.
