The National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), Kaduna, has been mandated to coordinate the Accelerated Teacher Professionalisation Pathway (ATPP), a new federal government initiative to professionalise non-professional teachers and bridge qualification gaps in Nigeria’s basic education system.
The programme will run under the supervision of the Honourable Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, with NTI’s Director and Chief Executive, Prof. Sadiya Sani Daura, leading the coordination.
The ATPP was initiated by Dr. Alausa to address a long-standing structural weakness where a significant number of teachers have been teaching without professional qualifications, TRCN licensing, or access to professional standards enforcement.
Rather than phasing out affected teachers, the initiative seeks to empower and professionalise them while keeping them in the classroom, in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda.
The programme will be delivered in blended format through two defined routes:
Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) – for serving teachers with a degree in a non-education discipline
Professional Diploma in Education (PDE) – for serving teachers entering from the National Diploma cadre
Both routes combine self-paced digital content, virtual facilitated sessions, structured assessment checkpoints, and supervised teaching practice verified in the teachers’ own schools rather than in simulated off-site centres.
NTI will serve as the Coordinating Secretariat and will deliver the programme through existing mandate institutions in partnership with:
UBEC
TRCN
NERDC
NSSEC
NUC and the Federal Ministry of Education
NTI will coordinate curriculum, content management and quality assurance in collaboration with UBEC and the Steering Committee.
Programme Structure and Readiness
The ATPP is a six-month programme comprising four months of intensive instruction and a two-month teaching practice component.
The academic track has been substantially completed. Curriculum frameworks for both routes have been reviewed, validated and finalised, while modules were developed by a national panel of about 40 content experts drawn from universities, colleges of education and mandate agencies including NTI, TRCN, NSSEC, UBEC and NERDC.
The programme architecture has also been mapped across federal, state and local tiers. Outstanding areas include finalising the digital curriculum delivery flow, the teaching practice component, and engagement with partner institutions.
Officials said the teaching practice component will determine whether the pathway produces real classroom change. It rests on three requirements:
A structured practicum
A mentor and supervisor protocol
Documented evidence of practice lessons, pupils’ artifacts and supervisor sign-offs tied to the candidate’s records
The design ensures teachers do not progress on digital technology alone, using a repeating cycle of virtual and physical components in each module.
A Sub-Committee on Media and Communication, headed by Dr. Iyela Ajayi, Executive Secretary of NSSEC, deliberated the communication strategy. NTI was represented by Mal. Yusha'u Ahmed, Head, Public Relations and Protocol.
The training is expected to engage 250,000 Nigerian teachers and will be launched in October 2026.
The ATPP provides a credible, affordable and time-bound route for serving teachers without teaching qualifications to obtain TRCN-recognised professional qualifications.