TEACHERS in Alimosho Local Government have revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has taught them to have multiple sources of income.
The teachers disclosed this when AlimoshoToday visited schools in celebration of the 2020 World Teachers' Day in Lagos State on Monday.
The theme of this year’s celebration is “Leading in Crisis, Re-imagining The Future”.
According to a teacher named Ngene Lilian, " COVID-19 has affected the financial aspect of our lives and general stability. The period of six months was actually a period where we were not receiving any stipend, so at that point in time, it has affected anything we have to do with cash and then generally, it affected us. We also stayed at home for a very long time before coming back to work.”
Another teacher, Yemisi Martins, also claimed that “COVID-19 has really affected Nigerian teachers. You see, I quote Nigerian teachers especially we that work in private schools. We've not been paid, but then, some schools paid their teachers, unlike some of us that we've not been paid since March.. So it really affected teachers. We thank God that we are women. There are some men who are teachers like us and they have a family to feed, so it really affected us financially. I can even say emotionally because when there's no money, you can have an emotional breakdown."
Other teachers like Mrs Ogunshina and Miss Cole Oluwaseyi also decried their financial instability as teachers.
On challenges that will be faced since schools have resumed, the teachers lamented that most of the students have forgotten what they were taught.
According to Martins, “the children have been at home for six long months. Since I've been teaching, there has never been a holiday that lasted for six months. So for the children, it is like revising everything from the beginning for them and there are some of them who have even become used to staying at home. So, they are really finding it difficult coming back to school."
Mrs Ogunshina said, “the children have almost forgotten everything we have taught them before and they are not many in school now. The parents said there's no need for their children to come to school because there is online teaching for them already.”
Miss Cole, however, said that there might be a slash in the salary of the teachers and that some parents are not willing to pay their wards' school fees or buy textbooks.
“One of the challenges is the reduction in salary. Two, we will face some problems with our parents because it's not all parents that are ready to pay the school fees and buy textbooks and it will give the teachers more job to do because when the children don't have textbooks, how will you teach them?”
On lessons learnt during the COVID-19 lockdown, all the teachers said they've learnt to have multiple sources of income.
“I've really learnt a lot of lessons in this COVID-19 period. As a human being, it is very good to have multiple streams of income. If not two or three. There are some people that just teach alone. They don't have other things they are doing. It really tells on them and also that, as Nigerians, we can be ICT compliant because during the lockdown, some schools were doing online classes,” Martins revealed.
Mrs Ogunshina said: “I learnt that it's not good to have one job. It's better for you to have different means of income like two or three, even four.”
Also for Miss Cole, "the pandemic has taught me not to have just one job to do, but have various types of jobs. Don’t depend on your teaching job alone.”
