Teachers across Nigeria deserve better remuneration and working conditions considering the role they play in building the next generation and ensuring societal congruence, Oluwaseyi Anifowose, the convener of ‘Let There Be Teachers’ Conference 2025, has said.

Speaking as a guest on Arise Television’s News Day programme, Anifowose highlighted the challenges facing teachers across the country and how the teaching profession has been relegated to the background, thereby robbing teachers of their voice in society.

Challenges including poor remuneration, prevalence of salaries that are not commensurate with workloads and qualifications of teachers, months of unpaid salaries which force teachers to take up side jobs or abandoning the profession altogether, lack of adequate infrastructure, overcrowded and poorly ventilation of classrooms, unavailability of basic tools including chalk, markers and text books, and lack of career progression continue dampen the morale of teachers making the professions unattractive.  

According to Anifowose, “the disregard for the profession manifests in many forms even in the admission process as many students who are not able to make high admission enough scores are pushed into the faculty of education therefore breeding an education sector workforce which is poorly motivated.  

“We must make the profession valuable and regarded, that is one of the things we are having the ‘Let There Be Teachers’ Conference 2025 and also incorporating an attempt to set a Guinness World Record with the event,” said Anifowose.