World Teachers’ Day: ABR Urges FG to Suspend 35-Year King’s College Concession

Funmi Ogundare As Nigeria prepares for the 2026 World Teachers’ Day on October 5, the Chief Executive Officer of Africa Brands Review (ABR), Joseph Ayodele, has called on the Federal Government to suspend or withdraw the proposed 35-year concession of King’s College, Lagos, arguing that the move could deepen tensions in the education sector. Ayodele, in a statement titled, ‘October 5, 2026 World Teachers’ Day: Towards a Crisis-Free Celebration in Nigeria’, said resolving the controversy surrounding the concession would help de-escalate tensions with stakeholders and facilitate the smooth resumption of Federal Unity Colleges and Federal Technical Colleges for the 2026/2027 academic session. He said the proposed concession, alongside unresolved policy issues affecting federal schools and implementation challenges surrounding the five-year service extension for teachers and education officers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), constituted potential flashpoints ahead of the annual celebration. According to him, the Federal Ministry of Education should approach the King’s College concession with constructive engagement rather than blanket condemnation, noting that rapid policy innovation must be matched with institutional and market readiness. The chief executive officer drew a parallel with his experience at Procter & Gamble in the early 1990s, arguing that even multinational organisations had to adapt their operational models to local economic and institutional realities. He said the delays surrounding the proposed 35-year King’s College Concession Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) reflected similar complexities. “To restore immediate stability ahead of October 5, the ministry should suspend or scrap the controversial King’s College concession MoU in its current form,” he stated. Ayodele also raised concerns over the implementation of the five-year service extension for teachers and education officers in the FCT. He noted that the FCTA had adopted the legal extension of the retirement age for teachers to 65 years or 40 years of service, but said the policy had contributed to a temporary promotion bottleneck among mid-level education officers. He expressed concern over proposals to redeploy senior education officers aged 60 and above into classroom teaching roles under junior administrative officers, describing such arrangements as potentially disruptive to workplace hierarchy and productivity. Rather than returning the officers to classroom positions, the chief executive officer recommended that they be deployed in senior education inspectorate, mentorship and curriculum advisory roles. He stated: “Such a model would enable the education system to benefit from their institutional knowledge and experience while creating room for younger officers to advance within the administrative structure.” Beyond the immediate areas of tension, Ayodele said Nigeria’s education sector had recorded reform milestones at both federal and sub-national levels. He cited the strategic modernisation initiatives of the Federal Ministry of Education, infrastructure expansion and administrative restructuring in the FCT, interventions by the Universal Basic Education Commission ( UBEC) and policy initiatives by state education authorities. He particularly emphasised the interventions by the Lagos State Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education under the Commissioner, Mr. Jamiu Tolani Alli-Balogun. Ayodele said his organisation’s maiden Nigeria Education Wheel of Progress Report, published in June 2026, had documented some of the reforms taking place across the country’s education system. He urged education stakeholders to recognise the progress being made while addressing areas of friction through dialogue and timely policy adjustments. On teacher welfare, he identified post-retirement financial security as one of the underlying issues contributing to industrial tensions in the education sector. He disclosed that the African Principals Conference Initiative (APCI) was preparing a school safeguarding and educator welfare project aimed at strengthening recognition, capacity development and post-service transition support for educators. Ayodele urged government, education administrators, unions and other stakeholders to work towards ensuring that this year’s World Teachers’ Day celebration focused on teachers’ contributions and the need to strengthen the education system, rather than industrial disputes and policy conflicts.