World Teachers’ Day: Nigeria Must Close the Gap Between What It Demands of Teachers and What It Gives Them

Its October 5 and Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark this year’s Teachers’ Day. The celebration comes with a question that extends beyond awards, speeches and ceremonies: how long can teachers be expected to deliver excellence without the conditions required to achieve it?

The American educator Horace Mann once observed that a teacher attempting to teach without inspiring a pupil to learn is “hammering on cold iron.” Decades later, the observation remains relevant to Nigeria, where teachers are expected to motivate millions of learners while navigating overcrowded classrooms, uneven infrastructure, limited resources and other systemic challenges.

Nigeria’s education system serves more than 39.8 million learners with about 1.18 million teachers, figures that illustrate both the scale of the country’s educational responsibility and the pressure placed on its teaching workforce.

The challenge, therefore, is no longer simply about increasing the number of schools or teachers. It is about strengthening the system in ways that allow teachers to perform effectively.

The global picture makes the issue even more urgent. UNESCO estimates that the world will face a shortage of about 44 million teachers by 2030, highlighting the growing difficulty of attracting, retaining and adequately supporting educators.

For Nigeria, which already has a large and rapidly growing school-age population, the global shortage presents an additional challenge.

The country will need more teachers, but numbers alone will not solve the problem. Teachers must also be adequately trained, professionally supported and provided with the tools and working conditions necessary to teach effectively.

This year’s World Teachers’ Day offers an opportunity to examine that wider picture.

The 2026 commemoration marks 60 years of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, a landmark framework that established international standards around teachers’ rights, responsibilities, preparation, recruitment, employment and working conditions.

The anniversary therefore provides more than an occasion to celebrate educators. It offers a chance to examine whether the principles established six decades ago are being adequately reflected in the realities teachers face today.

Nigeria has made progress in strengthening the professional identity of teaching. The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, under its leadership, has registered more than 1.63 million certified teachers, providing a framework for professional accountability and quality assurance.

Professional registration, however, is only one part of the equation. A professional teaching workforce also requires continuous development, decent working conditions, opportunities for career progression and institutional support.

The central question is whether Nigeria’s education system can match its expectations of teachers with the resources and policies required to help them succeed.

UNESCO, UNICEF, the International Labour Organisation and Education International have used this year’s commemoration to call on governments to improve conditions for teachers.

Their message is that educators must be given the means to contribute to building more inclusive, peaceful and sustainable societies.

That means treating teachers not simply as employees within the education system, but as one of its most important assets.

A teacher standing before a classroom cannot compensate indefinitely for inadequate infrastructure, insufficient teaching materials or poor institutional support through personal commitment alone.

Against this backdrop, the Federal Government is introducing a change in the way outstanding teachers and schools are recognised.

The selection process for the 2026 President’s Teachers’ and Schools’ Excellence Awards (PTSEA) has been digitalised, ending the manual process previously used to identify award recipients.

The Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, disclosed this in Abuja as part of activities marking this year’s World Teachers’ Day.

According to Ahmad, the digital system was introduced in line with African Union guidelines and is designed to improve transparency, accountability, security and documentation in the selection process.

“For the first time, the selection process coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Education was digitalised in line with the African Union guidelines to ensure certainty, accountability and reference,” she said.

The move could strengthen confidence in the awards by creating a more traceable process for identifying and assessing teachers and schools.