Award-winning teacher sold gifted car because he earned ₦20,000 a month, TRCN registrar reveals

• TRCN Registrar Ronke Soyombo says some private school teachers earn as little as ₦20,000 a month.

• She recalled an award-winning teacher who sold a car gifted to him because his salary could not sustain him.

• The council says better pay and improved working conditions are essential to improving education standards.

The Registrar of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, Dr Ronke Soyombo, has raised alarm over the poor pay conditions of teachers in private schools across Nigeria, revealing that some educators take home as little as ₦20,000 every month.

Soyombo made the remarks on Wednesday at the Annual Summit of the Conference for Private School Associations in Lagos, themed "Transformation of Education in Lagos State," where she argued that no meaningful improvement in Nigeria's education sector was possible without first addressing how teachers are treated and compensated.

To illustrate her point, she recounted the experience of an award-winning teacher who received a car as a prize from Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, only to sell it shortly after because his monthly salary left him with no choice.

"I remember when Governor Dapo Abiodun and I were going to present a car to the best teacher. He was from a private school. He got a car. A week later, I saw him walking on the road and asked what happened to the car. He said he had sold it. When I asked why, he said he was being paid ₦20,000 monthly," she said.

For Soyombo, the story captures everything wrong with how the profession is currently valued. Teachers who cannot afford basic living expenses cannot be expected to pour themselves into their work, she argued, and the cycle of poor pay, low motivation and high turnover is ultimately the student who suffers.

"If we want good service, we have to pay teachers well. For us to get quality service from good teachers and stop them from looking left, right and centre, they also want to send their children to good schools, so let's pay teachers good money," she said.

She also addressed a concern she said was common among private school proprietors: the reluctance to invest in teacher training out of fear that better-qualified staff would simply leave for higher-paying competitors. 

Soyombo pushed back on that logic, arguing that improving conditions of service was the only sustainable way to retain good teachers rather than watching them walk out the door regardless.

Beyond pay, the TRCN registrar called for stronger teacher regulation, continuous professional development and better safeguarding structures across schools. She disclosed that the council had upgraded its digital teacher portal to streamline registration, licensing and verification, with a mobile application for teachers planned for launch nationwide.

She also revealed that the council was working on introducing criminal record checks for teachers and had put in place a toll-free line for reporting sexual abuse and professional misconduct in schools.

Soyombo closed by warning that education reforms in Nigeria had repeatedly failed because teachers were left out of the conversation entirely. "A lot of people try to improve education while ignoring the teachers from the outset," she said.

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