Teaching Is More Than a Profession; It Is a Position of Trust
Every day, millions of Nigerian parents entrust their children to teachers, school administrators, caregivers, coaches, instructors and other adults working in educational institutions. They do so with the expectation that these individuals will not only educate their children but also protect their safety, dignity and well-being.
Yet, an important question remains: How many of the adults entrusted with the care of Nigerian children have received formal training on how to recognise, prevent, report and respond appropriately to child abuse, neglect, exploitation and other safeguarding concerns?
A person may possess a university degree, a teaching qualification, years of classroom experience and excellent subject knowledge, but still lack the essential knowledge required to protect children from harm.
Academic qualifications establish educational competence. They do not automatically establish safeguarding competence.
The Institute of Child Safeguarding Advocacy–Nigeria (TICSAN) therefore calls for a fundamental reform of recruitment and professional development practices across Nigeria’s education sector.
Our position is clear: No individual should be employed, deployed or permitted to work in a position involving direct or indirect responsibility for children without demonstrating appropriate child safeguarding knowledge and competence.
Safeguarding training should become a compulsory prerequisite for employment and a continuing professional requirement for everyone working with children.
1. The Scale of the Problem Demands Urgent Action
Child abuse is not a distant possibility or an isolated social problem. It is a serious national concern that affects children’s physical safety, emotional well-being, educational development and future opportunities.
According to Nigeria’s 2014 Violence Against Children Survey, published by the National Population Commission in collaboration with UNICEF and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
– Six out of every ten Nigerian children experienced at least one form of physical, sexual or emotional violence before reaching the age of 18.
– More than 70% of children who experienced violence suffered repeated incidents.
– One in four girls and one in ten boys experienced sexual violence.
– Fewer than 5% of child victims received the support they needed to recover.
The findings also identified schools and other familiar environments among the places where violence against children occurs.
These figures, although based on a 2014 national survey, remain an important warning about the scale and nature of the safeguarding challenge facing Nigeria.
The implication is significant: children are not necessarily safe simply because they are within the walls of a school or under the supervision of an adult.
A school may have qualified teachers, modern facilities, impressive academic results and excellent publicity, yet still lack the systems and personnel required to protect its learners.
Source: UNICEF, Ending Violence Against Children in Nigeria.
2. Real-Life Cases: When the Adults Entrusted with Protection Become the Source of Harm
The need for compulsory safeguarding training becomes even more compelling when we consider actual cases decided by Nigerian courts.
Case Study 1: The Lagos Teacher Sentenced to Life Imprisonment – December 2024
In December 2024, an Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court sentenced a teacher, John Osifo, to life imprisonment for defiling an eight-year-old pupil.
According to court reports, the offence occurred during the COVID-19 lockdown period, both at the child’s residence and in connection with the private school where the teacher worked.
The trial judge observed that the defendant had abused the position of trust entrusted to him as a teacher. His name was also ordered to be entered in the Lagos State Sexual Offences Register.
This case demonstrates how children can be exposed to abuse even by adults who have been given educational and caregiving responsibilities.
It also highlights the importance of professional boundaries, appropriate supervision, safe home-lesson arrangements and institutional safeguarding procedures.
Source: The Guardian Nigeria, 10 December 2024.
Case Study 2: A Music Teacher Sentenced to Life Imprisonment – May 2025
In another disturbing case, a Lagos Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court sentenced Anthony Okeh, a music teacher and counsellor at Lachez O International School, to life imprisonment for defiling a nine-year-old pupil.
The judgment was delivered in May 2025.
The case is particularly instructive because the accused occupied a position that involved both teaching and counselling responsibilities.
It reinforces the reality that professional titles, educational responsibilities and positions of authority do not automatically guarantee that children are safe.
It also demonstrates why safeguarding must apply to every category of school personnel, regardless of their subject area or job description.
Source: The Guardian Nigeria, 21 May 2025.
Case Study 3: Two Teachers Convicted in Ekiti State – February 2025
In February 2025, an Ekiti State High Court sentenced two teachers, Gbenga Ajibola and Olaofe Ayodele, to 20 years’ imprisonment each for rape-related offences involving two female students aged 15 and 17.
Court reports indicated that the offences occurred in 2019. One of the convicted teachers was a computer teacher.
The case illustrates the vulnerability that can arise when adults exploit their positions of authority and students’ trust.
It also reinforces the importance of teaching children about personal safety, professional boundaries, appropriate reporting channels and their right to speak out.
Source: Premium Times, 25 February 2025.
Case Study 4: A Teacher Convicted in Abuja – October 2025
In another case, a Federal Capital Territory High Court sentenced a 19-year-old teacher, Abdullahi Abbass, to life imprisonment for raping his nine-year-old male pupil.
According to NAPTIP’s statement reported by The Punch on 1 November 2025, the teacher was the child’s class teacher and lured the pupil away after school hours before committing the offence.
The case is a reminder that boys, just like girls, are vulnerable to sexual abuse and that safeguarding must be gender-inclusive.
It also demonstrates why safeguarding responsibilities must extend beyond classroom hours and school premises.
Source: The Punch, 1 November 2025.
These cases are not presented to suggest that teachers generally are perpetrators of abuse. The overwhelming majority of teachers work hard and make sacrifices to support children’s development.
Rather, they demonstrate that recruitment based solely on academic qualifications, professional experience or personal recommendations is insufficient to establish that a person is suitable to work with children.
A robust safeguarding system must anticipate risks, establish preventive measures and provide clear procedures for responding when concerns arise.
3. What Exactly Should Every Teacher Be Trained to Understand?
Child safeguarding is much broader than preventing sexual abuse. It encompasses the policies, practices, professional standards and protective systems required to prevent children from experiencing harm.
Every teacher should receive structured training in the following areas:
A. Understanding Child Abuse and Its Different Forms
Teachers must understand how to recognise:
– Physical abuse and corporal punishment.
– Sexual abuse, grooming and sexual exploitation.
– Emotional and psychological abuse.
– Neglect and abandonment.
– Bullying, intimidation and harassment.
– Online abuse, cyberbullying and digital exploitation.
– Discrimination and harmful treatment of children with disabilities or other vulnerabilities.
B. Recognising Signs and Indicators of Abuse
Teachers are often among the adults who interact with children regularly. They may notice changes in behaviour, unexplained injuries, withdrawal, fear, anxiety, sudden academic decline or inappropriate sexualised behaviour.
Training should equip them to recognise possible warning signs without automatically assuming that every indicator proves abuse.
C. Professional Boundaries and Appropriate Conduct
Teachers must understand acceptable and unacceptable professional relationships with learners.
This includes:
– Avoiding inappropriate physical contact.
– Maintaining appropriate communication with learners.
– Avoiding private and unsupervised interactions that create safeguarding risks.
– Prohibiting sexual relationships or exploitation of learners.
– Understanding appropriate use of social media and digital communication.
– Avoiding humiliating, threatening or degrading disciplinary practices.
D. Child-Friendly Reporting and Disclosure Management
A teacher must know what to do when a child reports abuse or when abuse is suspected.
This includes listening without judgment, taking the child seriously, avoiding leading questions, not promising absolute secrecy, documenting concerns accurately and reporting through the appropriate safeguarding and statutory channels.
Teachers must also understand that investigating allegations is not their responsibility. Their responsibility is to protect the child, report the concern and cooperate with the appropriate authorities.
E. Child Protection Laws, Policies and Institutional Responsibilities
Training must familiarise teachers with relevant Nigerian child protection laws, school safeguarding policies, reporting procedures and professional responsibilities.
F. Positive Discipline and Child-Centred Classroom Management
Teachers should understand how to maintain discipline without violence, intimidation, humiliation or other harmful practices.
Safeguarding must become part of everyday teaching practice, not merely a response to emergencies.
4. Safeguarding Training Must Become an Employment Requirement
TICSAN strongly advocates a change in the way teachers and other child-facing personnel are recruited in Nigeria.
Currently, many recruitment processes concentrate on academic certificates, teaching qualifications, professional experience, interviews and subject knowledge.
These are important, but they do not adequately address the question of child safety.
We propose that the Federal Ministry of Education, State Ministries of Education, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), relevant regulatory authorities and other education stakeholders work towards a national framework that makes safeguarding competence a compulsory employment requirement.
Under this proposed framework:
1. Pre-employment safeguarding certification: Every prospective teacher should obtain a recognised basic child safeguarding certificate before assuming duties involving children.
2. Mandatory induction: Newly employed teachers should undergo institution-specific safeguarding induction before being given unsupervised access to learners.
3. Continuous professional development: Safeguarding should form part of compulsory annual professional development, with periodic refresher training and competency assessments.
4. Safeguarding requirements for non-teaching personnel: School administrators, cleaners, drivers, security personnel, counsellors, coaches, volunteers, interns, teaching assistants and other adults who interact with children must also receive appropriate training.
5. Recruitment screening: Schools should strengthen background checks, identity verification, reference checks and lawful verification of relevant criminal and sexual-offence records, where accessible.
6. Institutional safeguarding policies: Every school should have a written child safeguarding policy, a designated safeguarding lead, clear reporting channels and an established referral process.
7. Accountability and compliance monitoring: Regulatory authorities should incorporate safeguarding competence and implementation into school registration, inspection, accreditation and quality assurance processes.
Importantly, a certificate should not become a mere document purchased to satisfy an employment requirement. Competence must be assessed, verified and periodically renewed.
5. Nigeria Already Has a Foundation: It Is Time to Strengthen Implementation
Nigeria does not need to start from zero.
The country has already established important legal and policy foundations for protecting children.
The Child Rights Act 2003 provides for children’s protection and care and establishes responsibilities for institutions and organisations entrusted with children’s welfare. Section 2(2), in particular, addresses standards relating to the suitability of staff and competent supervision.
However, the Child Rights Act’s application depends on its enactment by the relevant states, alongside its application in the Federal Capital Territory. States must therefore continue strengthening their respective child protection frameworks.
Furthermore, the Federal Ministry of Education has developed the National Policy on Safety, Security and Violence-Free Schools and the Minimum Standards for Safe Schools.
The Ministry’s national school safeguarding referral framework also provides guidance on how concerns about learners’ safety should be reported, assessed and addressed.
The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria has made safeguarding resources available, including guidance on safeguarding principles, reporting pathways and national school safety standards.
These developments provide a strong foundation for institutionalising safeguarding across Nigerian schools.
The missing link is ensuring that every adult working with children has the knowledge and competence to implement these standards in practice.
Sources: Federal Ministry of Education; TRCN; UNICEF Nigeria.
6. Safeguarding Is Not Only About Identifying Perpetrators; It Is About Building Protective Institutions
One important misconception that must be corrected is the belief that safeguarding is simply about identifying and punishing individuals who abuse children.
While accountability is essential, effective safeguarding is primarily preventive.
A safeguarding-conscious school does not wait for an incident before developing procedures.
It anticipates risks and establishes measures to minimise them.
Such a school:
– Conducts appropriate recruitment and background screening.
– Trains all personnel in safeguarding standards.
– Establishes clear professional conduct expectations.
– Appoints a competent Designated Safeguarding Lead.
– Provides accessible and confidential reporting mechanisms.
– Takes children’s complaints seriously.
– Maintains appropriate supervision of staff and learners.
– Establishes referral relationships with relevant child protection authorities.
– Protects children from retaliation after reporting concerns.
– Reviews safeguarding policies and practices regularly.
Training is therefore necessary, but it must operate within a wider institutional safeguarding framework. Training alone cannot guarantee that abuse will never occur. Its effectiveness depends on leadership commitment, appropriate systems, supervision, reporting and accountability.
7. Why Safeguarding Certification Should Matter to School Owners and Parents
For school proprietors and administrators, child safeguarding should not be regarded as an additional administrative burden or an unnecessary financial expense.
It is an essential component of responsible school management.
A school that demonstrates a commitment to safeguarding is better positioned to:
– Build parental confidence and trust.
– Strengthen its institutional reputation.
– Identify and address risks before they escalate.
– Improve staff conduct and professional accountability.
– Establish safer learning environments.
– Demonstrate commitment to applicable regulatory standards.
– Protect its learners, workforce and institutional integrity.
Parents should also begin asking important questions before enrolling their children:
1. Does the school have a written child safeguarding policy?
2. Have its teachers and other personnel received safeguarding training?
3. Is there a designated safeguarding lead?
4. Are there clear procedures for reporting abuse?
5. How does the school respond when a child reports an incident?
A school’s academic performance is important, but the safety of the children entrusted to it must never be secondary.
8. Our Call to Action: Make Safeguarding a National Professional Standard
The Institute of Child Safeguarding Advocacy–Nigeria calls on the following stakeholders to take deliberate action:
The Federal Ministry of Education: Develop and champion a national policy framework making verified safeguarding training and competence a compulsory requirement for all school personnel working with children.
State Ministries of Education: Incorporate safeguarding certification, institutional policies and compliance assessments into school registration, inspection and monitoring processes.
Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria: Integrate compulsory safeguarding competencies into teacher registration, licensing, induction and continuing professional development frameworks, subject to its statutory mandate.
School Proprietors and Administrators: Stop treating safeguarding training as optional. Make it a condition of recruitment, induction and continued professional engagement.
Teacher Training Institutions: Integrate child safeguarding education into pre-service teacher preparation programmes so that newly qualified teachers enter the profession already equipped with foundational safeguarding knowledge.
Parents and Guardians: Demand evidence of safeguarding policies, trained personnel and functioning reporting systems in the schools where their children are enrolled.
Civil Society and Child Protection Organisations: Support the development of standards, training opportunities, monitoring systems and public awareness initiatives that strengthen institutional accountability.
Conclusion: A Qualified Teacher Must Also Be a Safeguarding-Conscious Teacher
The question Nigeria must begin asking is no longer simply whether a person is qualified to teach.
We must also ask whether that person understands how to protect the children they have been employed to teach.
A teacher who cannot recognise signs of abuse, maintain appropriate professional boundaries, respond correctly to a child’s disclosure or follow established reporting procedures has a significant professional development gap.
Safeguarding is not an optional skill. It is an essential competency for anyone entrusted with children.
We must move away from a system in which safeguarding training is considered an occasional workshop and towards one in which safeguarding competence is a recognised condition of professional practice.
No school should wait until a child is abused before training its teachers. No proprietor should wait until a scandal damages the institution before establishing safeguarding standards. No government should wait until another tragic case makes the headlines before strengthening preventive systems.
Every child has the right to learn in an environment where their safety, dignity and well-being are protected. Every adult working with children has a responsibility to uphold that right.
TICSAN therefore advocates a national safeguarding standard under which no teacher, school administrator, caregiver or other child-facing worker should commence employment without appropriate safeguarding training and verified competence.
Let safeguarding become a condition of employment, a standard of professional conduct and a culture within every educational institution in Nigeria.
Because protecting children is not somebody else’s responsibility. It is everyone’s responsibility.
Every Child Safe, Every Institution Accountable.
An Institutional Advocacy Position by The Institute of Child Safeguarding Advocacy–Nigeria (TICSAN)
Motto: Every Child Safe, Every Institution Accountable.
For institutional engagement, safeguarding training and advocacy partnerships:
Email: infoticsan.org@gmail.com
Phone: +234 805 775 4311
EduTimes Africa, a product of Education Times Africa, is a magazine publication that aims to lend its support to close the yawning gap in Africa's educational development.