Tag: teachers

The spiraling inflation is eroding whatever amount of increase that has been added to the emoluments and pensions of serving and retired teachers by the public and private sectors, thereby provoking persistent calls for better attention to improve on the welfare of teachers around the nation.

The latest passionate appeal for better treatment of teachers came from Dr. Chinenye Ebele Onuorah, who spoke in Lagos at a training programme for about 500 serving and retired teachers.

Dr. Onuorah, who is a trainer for educators and  Team Lead of Regalo Hope Foundation , a non-governmental organisation,  called for more viable programmes to improve the condition of service for  teachers nationwide.

She noted that both the federal and state governments still need to do more for teachers just as she said also that private school owners , religious bodies and the private sector need to partner with government to improve the condition of teachers.

She spotlighted the harsh realities facing educators . According to her, some of the unpalatable experiences of teachers include poor salaries and allowances, inadequate housing and medical care and delay in payment of gratuities and pension for retired teachers.

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She said that there have been instances in the past where some retired teachers collapsed while lining up during processing of their entitlements after over three decades of meritorious service to their country.

Her words: “Majority of teachers in Nigeria are merely surviving. They are not enjoying quality living. Only very few teachers in very few private schools get fairly decent wages. All the improvement in salaries and allowances of teachers often gets wiped off by inflation as is currently happening all over our country .”

Dr. Onuorah added that “we now have a situation in this country today where more and more teachers are finding it difficult to get fairly decent living conditions as inflation erodes the purchasing power of the working classes every day.”

More than 60,000 teachers including those in public and private schools are expected at a teachers’ conference poised to break the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of teachers in one location.

Speaking at a press conference in Lagos,  Director of Strategic Partnerships, 1 Million Teachers, Oluwaseyi Anifowose noted that the conference is slated for September 20, at the Tafawa Balewa Square(TBS) in Lagos.

Anifowose who is the convener, said it is tagged: “Let There Be Teachers Conference 2025,” while theme is: “Teachers’ matter: Celebrating the role of teachers in enhancing quality education,”

He noted that the Lagos State Government had expressed support for the event and approved the attendance of all public school teachers, while the Nigerian Union Teachers and other associations are involved.

Anifowose said: “Over 60,000 teachers will gather at the Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos to celebrate their role, reaffirm their commitment and make history. We are proud to announce that the event will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of teachers in one location.

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“This is not just about breaking records, it’s about breaking barriers. It’s about challenging the status quo, disambiguating societal perception, and raising the bar and a new banner for teachers in Nigeria. It’s about raising a new generation of teachers that can illuminate the mind, inspire change and transform generations, one child at a time.”

He added that it will also feature keynote speeches from the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa and other national and  international education leaders,and a “call to action” communique for a teacher-led education policy reform.

Earlier, Chief Executive Officer of 1 Million Teachers (1MT) Prof. Hakeem Subair, reiterated his commitment to creating a world with enough high-quality teachers to ensure all children can access a proper education.

Head of Growth Edusko, Sola Adeola, described the conference as a celebration of the transformative power of teachers.

By Tunde Akanni PhD

When destiny brought him to Ede, then in old Oyo State, little did he realise he had come to cultivate and seal a most enduring bond with fate encompassing the totality of his life through family and career. Young David had a most inviting sartorial taste that students found awesome. His slim-fit shirts always sat on his pretty frame with utmost convenience. David ensured his matching shirt and trousers combined well with his stiletto shoes of the era.  His marches from one edge of the blackboard to the other radiated authority filled with fashion. To what else would you appropriate your attention when you had a captain in front of you with the capacity to fly you around the world in 40 minutes? How?

Unmistakably urbane and feminine voice bearing David Oladeji came to Ede Muslim Grammar School to teach Geography. He taught me Human Geography.  You must come to his class with your manually drawn world map each time his class held. And then the tour would begin. Oladeji rammed all the geographically important regions of the world into our local heads from the Ruhr region in in the then USSR to the Appalachains and the Prairies of North America. Our darling Oladeji’s  Prairies was to echo to me and a former schoolmate, Dr S O Ibraheem, who later became and retired recently as an investment banker in the US.

 It was during my first visit to that country in 1998. Dr Ibraheem was at that time an academic on the staff of Penn State University.  He had obtained a first class degree from the University of Ibadan and got his master degree from the same university before proceeding to the US where he later bagged his PhD.  Ibraheem is a tireless adventurist to beat any day. So, I had gone to him on a visit from my New York base.  Incidentally, my visit coincided with the time he had just gotten a new job with Goldman Sachs, an industry leader. He therefore needed to do a special shopping preparatory to assuming his new position in the bank. 

 No one could do meticulous and shrewd shopping better than my brother and friend in the God’s own country.  We therefore dedicated a whole day to exploring the best shopping centres starting with the globally renowned labels to their respective factory outlets.  Not long after we set out from State College towards Philadelphia and New Jersey I think, our secondary school knowledge of Geography suddenly unleashed in our conversation: “Musibau, this entire vast stretch of the green hilly region we have   here are the Prairies o. /Ehn, that Oladeji man…you would think he was born here…he taught with passion… well, o de kuku ko ere re../ How?/ He took one of our best girls nah/ Really? /He married Suebat, the ebony black Adenle girl ./ Tell me!  But that guy would go places o.” Oladeji has since conquered the world, to our delight. 

We all appreciated the fact that Oladeji taught with passion. You would think he had a PhD.  Oladeji later started his PhD and I suddenly discovered that when  met him at UI and he personally told me. Somehow, I assumed he was pursuing his PhD in Geography. Oga had switched to Psychology I learnt years later when his professorship was announced and some of us celebrated that as our own. He married our sister, so he’s become our own.  Oladeji is today a professor of Psychology at Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife, formerly University of Ife.

Same University of Ife produced my History teacher and lifelong hero, Siyan Oyeweso.  Here is the man you can never hurt, ever triumphant and relentlessly progressing with whatever the task at hand may be even as he urges on everyone else with his recurrent verbal gesture of ma jaye ori e. 

Like Oladeji, Oyeweso just began cutting his scholarly teeth when he taught me as a 100 Level student at the University of Ilorin in 1982. He had just obtained his first degree, Second Class Upper, missing First Class by whiskers. Even at that level of academic attainment, Oyeweso took his career so serious early in life that he left no one in doubt about his high level of preparedness for his classes. Siyan never held any note to read out to us for lectures, yet led our classes with as much proficiency as the only professor in the department, Ade Obayemi, would. Little wonder, Baba Oye, as we hailed him campus-wide, was a darling  of his intellectual fans, the students. And many of the young of those days have grown. Beyond producing several PhD scholars and professors, one of Oyeweso’s early students is a sitting vice-chancellor of a federal university in Nigeria.

Incidentally, Oyeweso is as intellectually endowed as he is sartorially conscious living up to the pedigree of our town of Ede proclaiming us ajilala oso, aii f’ojo gbogbo dara bi egbin. As if in deference to some commandment, Oyeweso always ensured complete dressing of complete agbada or jacket with a good tie to match. Our girls were always all over him.  I actually didn’t know that I shared the same birthplace with Oyeweso until the general elections of 1983. Like a bolt from the blues, my teacher showed up at the polling booth where I was serving as FEDECO appointed Poll Orderly. Voting over for him, he took me home for lunch and so was reinforced a lifelong relationship.  Oyeweso singlehandedly facilitated my re-entry into the academia to become a scholar at LASU where he spent more than two decades before venturing further to co-found the Osun State University.

Time is a trickster. So much water, as they say, had passed under the bridge through the years. Like Oyeweso, Oladeji too had had his career blessed beyond what is even obvious to us as his in-laws. His former student now the Executive Governor of Osun State, Senator Ademola Adeleke appointed him as member of the Governing Council of Osun State University thus becoming the employers of my revered Professor Oyeweso. In like manner, as perhaps deserving of an in-law that Prof Oyeweso is to Oladeji, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appointed Oyeweso the Chair of the Governing Council of Obafemi Awolowo University, thus becoming the employer of our in-law too.

Lives of academics are probably the most interesting.  They smack of boundless seminality especially if genuinely cultivated and sustained.  This is what is manifesting  through generations in the lives of my darling brother and hero Professor Siyan Oyeweso and my ageless brother in-law and most inspiring teacher, Professor David Oladeji. 

On this occasion of Teachers Day in 2024, I pray for  Allah’s ceaseless favours for you and all of my formal and informal teachers till date.

Happy Teachers Day!

Tunde Akanni is an associate professor of journalism at LASU. Connect with him on X: @AkintundeAkanni