The National Universities Commission (NUC) has granted the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) approval for the affiliation of its Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) programme to two universities.
These are the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS) and the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID).
With this development, the two universities would be awarding PGDE to NTI students enrolled for the programme.
NTI’s Director of Examination, Mr Bashir Mamman revealed this to EduCeleb.com on Wednesday in Lagos.
Prior to this latest development, the NTI PDGE used to be entirely affiliated with UDUS.
But an administrative reform under the current Director-General of the institution, Professor Garba Azare had since 2017 sought to decentralise the affiliation to six universities across each of Nigeria’s geopolitical zones.
While UDUS awards diplomas for students in North-Western Nigeria, UNIMAID would do that of the North-East. The North-Central NTI PGDE is to be awarded by the University of Ilorin while that of the South-West is affiliated to the University of Ibadan.
Students in the South-East would be awarded their diploma by Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka while their counterparts in the South-South would have the University of Portharcourt on theirs.
EduCeleb.com had in November 2018 reported that the affiliation processing delayed the release of the results of NTI PGDE students since the 2017/2018 academic session.
Mamman gave assurance that once the NUC approves each of the other universities and their respective senates considers and approves the pending PDGE results, students in such zones would see their results. He said the process is ongoing.
“Now that we have got approval for these two universities, we have scheduled a session with them concerning the consideration of the results,” he said.
“Once we present results and they consider these, we would release them immediately. Pending the release of the certificates, we would issue them a statement of results.”
“For the remaining universities, they have conducted resource visits and had also submitted their reports to the NUC. Hopefully, by the next two weeks, we would be able to get the approval for the remaining four.”
EduCeleb.com reports that NTI, which is one of the teacher-training instructions recognised under the National Policy on Education (2013) also offers the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) and Bachelor of Education degree.
Mamman disclosed that students in the NCE programme do regularly see their results shortly after each exam as that is directly managed by the education agency.
Whereas, the Bachelor’s degree programme is affiliated with the Faculty of Education at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).
Final year undergraduates would have to wait till the NOUN considers and approves their second semester 2017/2018 results later in May. Due to delayed submission, they missed joining their colleagues who graduated in March.
Because NOUN does not offer Social Studies and Physical and Health Education at the undergraduate level, the NTI had also sought and got NUC’s approval to affiliate both courses with UNIMAID.
“Once we are able to resolve the current issues of affiliation, results would be released in not more than one month from the exam subsequently,” he assured us.
