A close friend of mine who teaches at Mushin spoke to me in anguish, explaining in details, the harrowing conditions he lives in, as a teacher in one of the schools situated in that part of Lagos State. Since his NYSC service, he has been a classroom teacher, with a meagre salary not beyond N20,000. As a married man with kids, the remuneration was not sufficient enough to cater for his needs.
He narrated his pitiable experience to me so as to solicit some emotional sympathy, but unfortunately, his narrative drew no sympathy from me because his condition was far better compared to mine. Instead of indulging myself in hypocritical lamentation, I sat him down and shared some pathetic teaching experience(s) at Mushin with him.
The teaching experience of those memorable days at Mushin was like working as a slave. This ugly experience began at a school, a rented apartment, run by a proprietor who was obviously unfit to run a tutorial centre, let alone a school. His human relationship is terribly bad and staff welfarism is the worst I have seen. The school had and still has poor academic programmes.
The highest paid teacher in that school received N10,000 per month, a salary that was not commensurate with the heavy workload assigned to the teachers.
Throughout my two sessions and a term at this school, my mum always pitied my condition and performed her maternal role. Every day, it was her statutory duty to prepare pap and buy mọ́ínmọ́ín for my brunch. The meagre salary was never paid at the right time. So, essential needs were never available.
Teachers were and are still owed some months’ salaries. Having exhausted their patience, some of the teachers withdrew their services to the school, putting their faith in God over their outstanding salaries.
Soon, life became unbearable for me because I could not do without depending on mum for food and clothing. I transferred my services to another school in the same neighborhood, leaving my two months’ salaries with the proprietor as others did. It was as if I moved out of frying pan and into the fire. The peculiarities were so strong that one would conclude that the new school was an annex to the former one.
Virtually all the schools in this area maltreat their teachers – they overstress them with work, delay their salaries, subject them to horrible conditions. In this area, teaching profession has no equivalent in terms of miserable welfarism.
I am not unaware that the concern of TRCN is to get every Nigerian teacher registered, making them TRCN-certified teachers. The welfarism of the teachers never concerns them.
While quality teaching remains the concern of Quality Assurance Department under the Ministry of Education, NUT makes stentorian rhetorics without any action. The toothless body shows little or no concern about teachers’ miserable working conditions, most especially those working in substandard private schools. Private school teachers should not be marginalised.
The body that regulates school establishment should control emergence of substandard schools that make life miserable for teachers and make sure that their teachers are well taken care of.
To achieve the transformation we clamour for in the education sector, teachers’ welfare is very important.
