The Extinction of Male Teachers

By Esther Pius Ekong/

There was a time when the classroom was a balanced ecosystem. In my formative years, most of the subjects that shaped my intellect and discipline were taught by men: mathematics, social studies, government, physical and health education, introductory technology, integrated science, computer science, fine art, Christian religious studies, literature-in-English, economics, music, and agricultural science. These were domains largely occupied by male teachers.

One of them, our music teacher, who composed the school anthem, was so passionately invested in his craft that he would climb tables mid-lesson, not for theatrics, but to drive home the sacred precision of musical keys and rhythm.

Another, Mr Adeyeye, the agricultural science teacher, was at the time the only author of a textbook dedicated to the subject. These men were not merely teachers; they were custodians of discipline, models of authority, and quiet architects of our future. They co-existed excellently with female teachers.

Beyond the classroom, leadership followed the same pattern. The principal, administrative officer, bursar, guidance counsellor, and librarian were all men. Unsurprisingly, the security personnel and school drivers were also male. Authority, structure, and responsibility were clearly defined.

That was then.
Today, the reverse is not only the case, it has become the norm.

The Reality Check
I recently visited my alma mater. After exchanging pleasantries with my former English teacher, now the school principal, I casually asked how many male teachers were currently on the staff list.

“Men don’t want to be teachers anymore,” she replied, her face clouded with concern. She began counting aloud: “One… two… three.” After a brief silence, she added, “With the gateman and the driver, that makes five.”

Five male figures in the entire school.
This is not a statistic to be glossed over. It is a dangerous signal. A system once sustained by balance has tipped dangerously to one side. Is this not a threat to the very survival of male representation in education?

Classroom Fears
At a recent stakeholders’ meeting attended by ministry officials, non-governmental organisations, lawyers, teachers, and education personnel, a teacher stood up and spoke with visible exhaustion: “Teachers are afraid to discipline students. We are scared of being beaten, or worse, killed. Parents now come to school to threaten or physically assault teachers.

Many of us have lost interest. Some have resigned. Others simply look away from bad behaviour. Schools are no longer allowed to flog or punish students.”
This is no exaggeration. Just this year, reports emerged of male teachers being murdered by their students. Female teachers, on the other hand, face a different but equally horrifying reality: rape and sexual violence.

And yet, society continues to chant the mantra: “There is decadence in the education system.”
What is your contribution to the rot that has produced maggots? How do we expect improvement while systematically dismantling the very people entrusted with discipline, guidance, and moral instruction?

The Questions
Before proceeding further, I implore you to spare ten minutes to visit schools in your environment, public or private, urban or rural. You will find institutions with no male teachers at all, not even as support staff.

So we must ask:
• Is the salary too inadequate for a man expected to provide for a family?
• Is the social ridicule too heavy?
• Are campaigns against sexual abuse affecting the employment of male teachers?
• Is the fear of false accusations too real?
• Is the anxiety around physical interaction with children too paralysing?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are genuine concerns that demand collective answers.
Teaching was once a noble profession. Today, it has been reduced, by parents, students, and society, to a position of ridicule and suspicion.

Yet teaching remains the profession that moulds every other profession. The contradiction is staggering.
Unintended Consequences of Campaigns Against Abuse
Sustained and aggressive campaigns against child molestation, abuse, and gender-based violence, though necessary, have produced unintended consequences. They have created an environment where the mere presence of a man in a classroom is viewed with suspicion and anticipated assault.
Female children, who are the primary victims of sexual abuse in schools, are now heavily protected, and rightly so.

However, in a disturbing twist, male children are increasingly becoming victims of sexual abuse, sodomy, and exploitation. This reality is often ignored, buried beneath selective outrage and the false notion that a male child cannot be abused.

Recently, an image circulated of a 16-year-old boy involved in a sexual relationship with his 33-year-old female teacher. Society laughed. Memes were made. The outrage was muted.
That conversation, however, is for another day.

The Broken Chain: Home to School
School is not an isolated institution; it is a continuation of the home.

Philosophers were right when they said, “The home is the first school of every child.”
Yet economic pressure has forced many mothers to return to work weeks, sometimes days, after childbirth. The biological bond is being outsourced. A child wakes up, and instead of a mother’s warmth, meets cold glass and extracted milk delivered by a stranger.

By adolescence, parents are shocked by rebellion. But why should the child listen to a voice that was absent during the golden years of development? That voice was either stolen by circumstance or graciously handed over to strangers.
The child grows without parental authority or emotional security. Balance fractures. Frustration festers. When the final blow lands, the child is sent to boarding school.

Years later, parents complain: “This child is delinquent. He does not listen.” But why would he, when the authority, love, and care that should have been firmly planted during formative years were outsourced and lost?

Why Men Left the Classroom
Financial pressure, social expectations, and political agitation for equality have reshaped the labour market. But one fear stands above all others, the fear of accusation.
Many schools quietly avoid employing male teachers to escape potential allegations of molestation or defilement. Parents deliberately withdraw children from schools with male teachers. Proprietors, driven by survival, dismiss the few men they employ.

Ironically, this occurs in a world still largely governed by men.
By both societal and divine design, a man symbolises authority. But authority must be taught, guided, and responsibly exercised. When young boys are denied mentorship, structure, discipline, and guidance, both at home and in school, the consequences are destructive.

While the female child is often coached on navigating life’s challenges, the male child is left to “figure it out.”

When authority is not trained, it mutates into aggression, rebellion, and abuse. What we are witnessing is not coincidence, but consequence.

A Silent Gender War
Across sectors, the pattern repeats. In some government parastatals, male presence is almost non-existent, except as gatemen or messengers. In banks, men stand at entrances distributing forms. Former male teachers are now commercial cyclists, tricycle drivers, bus drivers, security guards, and in more tragic cases, inmates of correctional centres, institutions overwhelmingly populated by men.
When options are stripped away, survival is not rebellion; it is desperation.

The Social Aftershock
As male absence grows in both home and school, other social vices intensify. Homosexuality, lesbianism, and bisexuality increase, not merely as identity expressions, but as consequences of prolonged gender isolation.

A school staffed exclusively by one gender becomes fertile ground for unchecked same-sex experimentation. When balance is removed, extremes flourish.

So we must ask: Where is the balance? No male authority at home. None in school.
Under no circumstance should the importance of men in education be underestimated, yet it already is.

An Appeal
If we want men back in classrooms, we must restore dignity to the profession, protect teachers legally and institutionally, rebuild trust between parents and educators, and recognise that balance, not exclusion, is the solution.
Male teachers must be treated with fairness and respect, with incentives that augment their salaries. Only then can education begin to thrive again.
Let there be peaceful coexistence between male and female teachers.
That is the way forward.

Ekong, a legal practitioner, can be reached via:
idangbenedicta@gmail.com