In the old days, teachers were gods. They were next to the white colonial masters in ranking order. They were respected and valued. They were seen as people sent by God to remove ignorance from the earth in substitution of fortunes and good news of life. A community of yesteryear would never make a decision if the master is absent, since his input is crucial to the decision of the elders.

The master in the old days never suffered anything. He was robust and well fed. He barely touched his salary except when he needed it to buy a car or build a house. His lodging and food were in charge of the community. The washing and cleaning of his house were the exclusive domain of the students. They represented the community at government and other meetings. Masters in the old days were on the side of kings.

But His counterpart in modern times is easily recognized when cornered. He moves around in tattooed clothing. His shoes are worn. He is so thin and dry that sometimes his pants fall down his buttocks. When he puts on a tie, there is always a big gap between his collar and his shirt collar. He is always hungry and therefore always angry. Sometimes, in anger, he mistreats a student, and the next day, the boy’s father comes to the school to harass him.

He does not dare to present himself before important people as a teacher if he wants recognition: he prefers a more refined phrase: Education consultant. Because his salary is too low to sustain him for the month, he resorts to extorting money from the students under one excuse or another. Sometimes he participates in GCE ‘exposure’ business to make ends meet.

Some of the students even call him by various nicknames and he responds with joy. Nobody recognizes him when he attends a community function. He finds it difficult to get a lady of his choice because no girl wants a teacher for a date. He does not dare to attend a political meeting if his pocket is not full enough, otherwise he will not be recognized. His contribution without cash to back it will not be welcome, regardless of his education and vast experience.

Every student wants to be taught by him, but no student wants to be in his profession. Every parent needs him to teach his son or daughter, but no parent wants his son or daughter to teach for a living. Love him or hate him, the teacher stands as perhaps the last bastion of moral rectitude in a culture that seems bent on eluding that very possibility. The situation of the modern teacher is lamentable.

Teacher compensation has always been at the forefront of the national discourse. Poor pay, which does not reflect the harsh economic environment, has often led to strikes by members of the teaching profession at almost all levels of education in Nigeria. Primary and secondary school teachers in most states of the federation have had to collect bones at different times with the supervising authorities. It has become almost unimaginable to imagine a complete academic session that is not interrupted by labor actions of teachers at all educational levels in the country. The basic salary of a teacher is so abysmal; he/she has to reinforce the same with finding a small scale business at the same time he/she shows up for class, just to make ends meet.

It’s not uncommon to find a typical high school science lab in the dirt almost devoid of the lowest equipment. Private high schools seem to do better, but most also fail when it comes to equipping learning environments with the necessary tools to make learning much easier for teacher and student. Most students graduating from high school in science, especially in rural communities in Nigeria, only know what a beaker or conical flask is on the day of their practical test in Chemistry. The experiments described by ‘Abbot’ and PN Okeke in their Physics texts sound as surreal to them as they do to their teachers. The teacher, faced with these limitations in transferring knowledge to his mentee, still expects parents and principals to do it anyway or risks being labeled not good enough and fired. The books stored in most school libraries are sadly from the stone age.

Teachers are also on the receiving end of neighborhood or student violence, and examples abound. Students who want better grades, even when they don’t deserve the same, have often put the teacher in jeopardy. Male students in our ivory towers have often used the instrument of cult groups to harass teachers at will. I remember an incident where one of my teachers in high school was beaten to a pulp in a dark alley while walking home from a grocery store. A few days later, two students who never attended classes and who had often failed their math exams were found guilty of the attack and later expelled. Stories abound of teachers who have had to endure student violence, including the transfer of it to members of their families.

Those who portray teachers as bribe takers and custodians of moral bankruptcy in our institutions of higher learning must first look at the other side of the coin: the jobs the teacher has to endure to do their job; a job he enjoys but society doesn’t seem to give a damn about. The teacher is responsible for the achievements of the men and women who take the reins of all sectors of our national life. The teacher goes through the rigors of painstakingly gathering his materials all night before arriving at class, barely having slept. Yes, he receives a salary, but that salary is a drop in the bucket when he is juxtaposed with the gigantic salaries and bonuses that are sent to our elected politicians at all times. Yes, the teacher is far from perfect and should sometimes be given some slack for poor performance, however if ever there was a job that should be considered (borrowing from Julius Caesar) the noblest of all, it should be the good old teacher profession!

With the dangers associated with their work, it is surprising that there are still men and women for whom teaching remains a passion and not just a job. These are the Last Masters Standing, choosing to look beyond the dangers and trials associated with the job, but focusing entirely on it. They are not encouraged by society, the environment, or even wayward and recalcitrant students. If these teachers are not helped and encouraged, soon, and I mean soon, there may not be any Master standing on their feet. On a daily basis, these men and women are shaping the world around us in various classrooms across the country, as we tap the keyboards of our laptop computers in offices, entrusting the mental and physical development of our children to the teacher, the last man in foot in a world where few are worth the names of the professions through which they pass.