Issues Arising From World Teachers' Day Celebration In Nigeria

October 5 is a day set aside to celebrate teachers around the world. This celebration is based on an assessment of the teaching profession, the challenges that confront the profession, and how those challenges affect the lives of teachers.

The Nigeria case is quite insidious since the teaching profession no longer commands the respect it used to command some 60 years ago. Teachers have been reduced from being representatives and mothers of all professions to taking the back seat of shame, neglect, and dejection.

Only in Nigeria will you see someone who has never had first-hand training from a college of education or a faculty of education at a university system end up doing a Post Graduate Diploma in Education and, after a two-year programme, get certified as a teacher. In other professions, such as law, medicine, or engineering, this would never happen. This cheap process of becoming a teacher as an alternative has made the teaching profession a dumping ground for all Tom, Dick, and Harry.

Some government policies and programmes as regards the education system and teachers' welfare are nothing to write home about. In Nigeria, politics supercedes professionalism. This is why those who are not exposed to the education faculty nor serve as teachers or professors end up as Ministers and Commissioners of Education. When the pillar is faullty, the building won't stand too long before collapsing.

Some teachers are exposed to health and security hazards due to the poor working environments they operate in. Either faced with the challenges of student cultism; abduction from Boko Haram, bandits or unknown gunmen due to the porous nature of some schools; or affected by climate change and other environmental pollution.

Teachers are also facing the issue of late salary payment, delayed arrears, and promotions coupled with late payment of gratuity and pension. In fact, only a few states in Nigeria are getting this aspect right. This has resulted in a series of clashes in the form of industrial actions between the federal and state governments and the various representative bodies of teachers at the various educational strata (NUT, ASSU, among others). These incessant strike actions are affecting both the teachers and the students as academic activities are halted and many teachers who are having health challenges end up losing their lives while those indebted either swallow the bitter pills of suicide or continue living and gnashing their teeth.

All these and many more are some of the challenges teachers are facing in Nigeria as they celebrate World Teachers' Day today. It will interest you to know that the Federal Government's new policy of increasing teachers' retirement and service ages from 60-65 and 35-40 years, respectively, is yet to be fully gazetted and operational even after being pronounced two years back.

May God continue to bless our teachers with good health and long life, for without them I won't be able to read or write. If that is true, then you that are reading this post won't be able to read it today.

Happy World Teachers' Day to me, my parents, and every other teacher out there in the world, teaching with the passion of ending illiteracy and engendering a peaceful world.