Former Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, has lamented the failure rate of teachers who participated in the recently conducted examination by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) and called for the implementation of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO’s) 20% requirement to improve teachers’ standards in Nigeria.

Okechukwu, who addressed journalists during the Igwa Nshi annual festival at Eke in Enugu State at the weekend, lamented the poor standard of teachers nationwide as demonstrated by their poor results in the nationwide examination conducted by the TRCN.

He stated that the poor teachers’ standard means poor students’ standard, especially when 4,169 teachers across Nigeria failed the 2025 Batch ‘A’ Professional Qualifying Examination (PQE) conducted by the TRCN.

Okechukwu appealed to Federal, State, and Local Governments to, as a matter of urgent national importance, adhere strictly to the 15-20% UNESCO recommendation for total public expenditure on education to halt poor teachers’ standards.

He pointed out that education should take a premium of 20% budget allocation because “Nigeria’s greatest resource is human capital development; especially when we enjoy an uncommon 70% youth demographic advantage in an aging competitive world.”

He added: “I am pained over the heartbreaking crisis of inadequate funding and poor quality in our education system. To be frank, we need an urgent paradigm shift to increase investments in education and learning; for with our uncommon 70% youth demographic advantage, we can comfortably outsource skilled labour to the global community.”

It could be recalled that the Director of Certification and Licensing at the Council, Dr. Jacinta Ezeahurukwe, disclosed recently in a statement that in the nationwide examination, 4,169, representing 32.38%, failed out of 8,705 candidates representing 67.62%.

Okechukwu stated that the outcome of the examination was a reflection of what was happening in the nation’s primary and secondary school system.