World Teachers’ Day 2026: Beyond Celebrating Teachers, Are We Giving Them the Conditions to Teach?

By the Kaduna Basic Education Accountability Mechanism (KADBEAM)

Every year, World Teachers’ Day gives us an opportunity to appreciate the people standing at the centre of the education system. Teachers deserve that recognition. But appreciation should also lead us to a harder question: are we creating the conditions that allow teachers to succeed?

For Kaduna State, that question is particularly important.

The evidence available to KADBEAM points to a system in which significant policy commitments are being made, but where important gaps remain between those commitments and what teachers and learners experience in schools.

Kaduna’s 2026 approved education budget stands at approximately ₦243.98 billion, representing 25 per cent of the state budget. This is a substantial commitment to education. However, the Q1 2026 Budget Implementation Report recorded overall education expenditure performance of 7.4 per cent, while capital expenditure utilisation stood at 4.3 per cent, against the 25 per cent point that would represent an even quarterly trajectory.

That distinction matters.

An allocation is a commitment. Expenditure is implementation. And ultimately, the real test is whether implementation improves teaching and learning.

The teacher question is not simply about numbers

The available teacher workforce baseline reported 38,097 teachers in public primary and junior secondary schools, of whom 34,487, 90.5 per cent were classified as qualified or certified. These figures come from an earlier teacher-provision baseline and should therefore not be interpreted as a 2026 teacher headcount.

More importantly, aggregate numbers can conceal serious inequalities in deployment.

The same evidence base points to uneven teacher distribution, with rural schools experiencing deeper shortages while some urban schools have comparatively better provision. The reported pupil-teacher ratios illustrate the pressure: against a policy reference of 1:45, the sector overview reports approximately 1:59 at primary level and 1:88 at junior secondary level.

KADBEAM’s May 2026 analysis identifies an even more severe pressure point at Early Childhood Care, Development and Education: an ECCDE pupil-teacher ratio of 1:499, alongside a primary/basic ratio of 1:74 in the source documents used for the advocacy brief.

These figures should not simply become statistics in reports. They raise practical questions about what happens inside a classroom.

How much individual attention can one teacher provide? How effectively can a teacher identify a child who is falling behind? What happens to inclusive teaching when a classroom contains learners with different abilities and support needs but the teacher is already stretched?

From baseline to target to current result

Accountability requires us to distinguish clearly between these three.

Baseline tells us where the system started.

Target tells us what government has committed to achieve.

Current result tells us what has actually been delivered.

These should never be treated as interchangeable.

For example, Kaduna’s policy and planning documents recognise the need to improve teacher deployment and reduce extreme pupil-teacher ratios. KADBEAM’s May 2026 brief therefore recommended a phased ECCDE Teacher Workforce Rebalancing Plan, including movement of qualified personnel from administrative functions into classroom-facing ECCDE roles, with the objective of progressively moving the 1:499 ratio toward the SIP target.

But the evidence presently available to us does not establish that this rebalancing target has already been achieved.

That is an important accountability distinction.

Where there is a target, we should call it a target. Where implementation has begun, we should report implementation. And where independently verifiable current results are unavailable, we should say so rather than convert intentions into achievements.

Teachers cannot deliver quality education alone

Teacher effectiveness also depends on the environment surrounding the teacher.

The Q1 2026 evidence reviewed by KADBEAM showed that two important programmes fencing of 61 schools and school furniture provision had yet to record expenditure in Q1.

A teacher working in an insecure school, an overcrowded classroom or a classroom without adequate furniture is being asked to compensate personally for weaknesses that require system-level solutions.

The same applies to inclusion.

Girls, children with disabilities, rural learners and children in non-formal settings face particularly significant risks of exclusion. Teachers therefore need more than subject knowledge. They need appropriate training, teaching materials, manageable classrooms, accessible infrastructure and support systems that enable them to respond to different learners.

There are also signs of what is possible

Accountability should recognise progress where the evidence supports it.

Recent results from sampled PLANE-supported schools indicate encouraging foundational learning outcomes. Among Primary 4 learners in those schools, 91.2 per cent reached foundational numeracy and 78.1 per cent reached foundational literacy. Learners in PLANE-supported schools reportedly read an average of 13.5 words per minute compared with 3.8 words per minute in control schools.

These results should not automatically be generalised to every school in Kaduna State. But they offer an important lesson: when teachers receive structured support and when teaching, monitoring and learning interventions work together, better outcomes are possible.

The challenge is therefore to move from successful pockets of intervention to improvements that can be experienced across the system.

What should we ask after World Teachers’ Day?

As we celebrate Kaduna’s teachers, KADBEAM believes the conversation should continue beyond commendation.

We should ask whether teachers are being deployed where they are most needed; whether recruitment is closing verified staffing gaps; whether rural and hard-to-reach schools are receiving equitable support; whether teachers are adequately prepared for inclusive classrooms; whether approved resources are reaching schools on time; and, ultimately, whether these investments are translating into better learning outcomes for children.

KADBEAM’s own strategic direction recognises this accountability responsibility, including annual tracking of teacher-pupil ratios and collaboration with education stakeholders to improve quality and inclusive education.

World Teachers’ Day should therefore leave us with more than gratitude.

It should leave us with a commitment to evidence.

Celebrate the teacher, certainly. But also examine the system around the teacher.

Because when a teacher struggles with an overcrowded classroom, inadequate materials, unsafe infrastructure or inequitable deployment, that is not simply a teacher’s problem. It is an education-system problem.

And when the system gives teachers the right training, resources, environment and support, the benefit extends far beyond the teacher.

It reaches every child sitting in the classroom.

Rahila Baita Ishaku
Co-Chair, Civil Society,
Kaduna Basic Education Accountability Mechanism (KADBEAM)

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