In a quiet community school tucked within the semi-urban outskirts of Osun State, Mrs. Kehinde Akinlade, a graduate of Education Management, earns just ₦25,000 per month after teaching five subjects to over 80 students across different classes. “Sometimes, I go home hungry,” she tells Nigeria Education News. “If I speak up, I might lose my job. There are many people waiting to take my place.”
This is not an isolated story. Our six-week investigation across five states in Nigeria Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, and Ondo uncovered a dangerous pattern of systemic neglect in the private education sector. While 70% of students in Nigerian universities today trace their secondary education to private schools, the working conditions of teachers in these schools reveal a crisis at the heart of the nation’s future.
Many private school owners, especially in rural and semi-urban areas, operate their schools like profit-oriented ventures. Teachers are employed without contracts, often without prior training, and are paid salaries that can barely sustain them for two weeks. In some schools, teachers earn as low as ₦15,000 monthly, just ₦500 per day. “We are treated like housemaids,” one male teacher in Ilesa confessed. “We’re not allowed to question anything. Just teach and leave.”
In Irewole LGA of Osun State, we visited three private secondary schools where none of the teachers had a Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) certification. Two of the headteachers admitted that their teachers were “cheaper to manage” because they were young graduates looking for experience. Yet, these same schools collect between ₦40,000 and ₦55,000 per student every term.
Further findings revealed that many school owners see no need to invest in teachers’ welfare because of an unspoken norm: desperation keeps people working. “Even if one teacher leaves, five others are waiting at the gate,” said the proprietor of one of the private schools in Ekiti. He added, “We are running a business, not a charity.”
Beyond teacher remuneration, the content being taught in many of these schools is dangerously outdated. Our investigation revealed that most schools still use syllabuses last revised over a decade ago. In one school in Ilorin, Kwara State, students were still using Integrated Science textbooks from 2003. “The world has moved on, but our students are trapped in a past that can’t prepare them for the future,” lamented Mrs. Morenike Oladele, a retired education inspector in Ondo.
The curriculum challenge goes hand-in-hand with lack of professional development. Teachers across surveyed schools confirmed that they had not attended any form of training or workshop in the last three years. Some didn’t even know such existed. The Ministry of Education’s periodic school monitoring has become rare or ineffective, especially in remote areas, allowing substandard practices to flourish unchallenged.
A data analyst at the Ministry of Education in Abuja, who pleaded anonymity, told Nigeria Education News that while policymakers are pushing for data-driven educational reforms, the data being collected is often misleading. “How do you measure progress when the data is drawn from environments where teachers are unpaid and the curriculum is expired?” he asked.
In Ogbomosho, a group of private school teachers shared a chilling trend. Students in SS2 and SS3 were being “coached” for WAEC using exam expo materials, while normal class periods were skipped. “Parents just want their children to pass, not learn,” said one of the teachers. “So the school gives them what they want, not what the students need.”
Our investigation also uncovered that some schools intentionally avoid hiring qualified teachers to save costs. In Ibadan South-West, we found a school where three class teachers were SSCE holders. One of them teaches Basic Science and Computer Studies. When asked why the school chose unqualified staff, the owner said, “They are more loyal and more affordable.”
Parents interviewed in the course of this report expressed shock when informed of these revelations. “We thought private schools meant better education,” said Mrs. Ifeoma Anozie, whose son attends a secondary school in Ondo town. “Now I know we are only paying for a name.”
The psychological cost is another part of the tragedy. Several teachers described experiences of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Mr. Abubakar Yekini, a private school teacher in Osun, narrated how he was once locked out of school for arriving 10 minutes late after trekking 3km to get there. “They treat us like robots,” he said. “But we are humans with needs too.”
There is an urgent need for nationwide intervention. The federal and state governments must strengthen regulatory frameworks around private education. This includes enforcing minimum wage standards for teachers, making TRCN certification mandatory, and revising the national curriculum to reflect current global and local realities.
Moreover, policymakers and data analysts must pause and reevaluate the source and quality of educational data before drawing reform conclusions. Without fixing the foundations of teacher welfare and curriculum structure every data-driven solution will be built on false assumptions.
Nigeria cannot continue to normalize exploitation and mediocrity in its education sector. Teachers are not beggars, they are builders of the future. And the curriculum is not just paper it is the soul of a nation’s progress. If we continue to ignore these two pillars, no amount of data, AI, or funding will save us from the collapse that is already unfolding before our eyes.
