The process of becoming a lecturer in one of the Nigerian Universities is worth its stress when you consider how much do lecturers earn when compared with other teaching professionals. The Salaries of Nigerian lecturers, nevertheless, are among one the interesting ones, with many fringe asides as benefits, grants, plus their flexible working conditions, which makes it incontestable among its counterpart.
Many students aspired greatly in becoming a lecturer, especially when you considered the unemployment rate ravaging this country, with the buoyant lifestyles after learning about Salaries of Nigerian lecturers, they, therefore, give in their very best into their studies themselves to being among the top three (3) students among their level, as these are one of the major criteria in being considered as a lecturer in Nigeria and to start enjoying such huge monthly salaries of lecturers in Nigeria.
This article thus aimed at educating and revealing to you lecturer average salary in Nigeria and the salary ranges of lecturers in Nigeria, on a monthly and annual basis.
What are the Salary structures of Nigerian lecturers?
In the Nigeria of today, the salary ranges of university lecturers in the year 2023 are as follows:
| Cadre | Monthly Salary range | Annual Salary Range. |
| Lecturer II | N137,459 to N164,970 | N1,649,509 to N1,979,640 |
| Lecturer I | N173,333 to N223,668 | N2,079,996 to N2,684,010 |
| Senior Lecturer | N257,625 to N371,292 | N3,091,505 to 4,455,506 |
| Reader | N314,081 to N417,063 | N3,768,221 to N5,004,750 |
| Professor | N381,695 to N501,680 | N4,580,349 to N6,020,163 |
Kindly note here that this catalog of salaries of lecturers in Nigeria applies only to the Federal institution of learning, as well as their state university lecturer’s counterpart. Private Universities Salaries to their lecturers are quite different, which may be higher or lesser depending on the working conditions, nature of the private university in question, and other inherent factors, but most times, based on data from the Nigeria University Commission (NUC), are always higher than what we above mentioned of the average salaries of Nigerian lecturer in public universities.
How are the Salaries of Nigerian Lecturers accumulated?
Ever since immemorial, the Nigerian lecturer complains bitterly about the average salaries they earn, when compared with their private counterparts, as well as other lecturer salaries in other countries on both monthly and annual level.
On another thought, when critically examined, the salaries of Nigerian lecturers mostly are succinct with what college charging their students as school fees. However, within the same body, many Nigerian lecturers’ salaries are not evenly distributed, for numerous federal or state institutions pay higher when compared with others. As such is a scenario of a senior lecturer, lecturing at the University of Lagos could receive a monthly salary of about N500,000, while his colleague at Enugu State university may perhaps receive a monthly salary of about N400,000.
Other factors apart from the institution locale which determines how Salaries of Nigerian Lecturers are amassed are:
- Records of publications in both local and foreign journals.
- Other responsibilities attributed to your primary roles and duties.
- Academic qualifications, and
- The university faculty/department you are lecturing
Nevertheless, apart from the main lecturing activities, lecturers also craft multiple ventures for themselves to take-up some part-time and contract job offer for themselves, which earns them extra streams of income. Most times, these extra income sources supersede their average monthly salary.
In synopsis, when deliberating upon the salaries ranges of Nigeria lecturers, we are invariably communicating that the Nigeria lecturers’ salaries ought to be upgraded upon as to curb unnecessary industrial actions being embarked upon by the administrating bodies of the Nigeria lecturers, which are the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU), and Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) for non-lecturers. Improved welfare packages and other necessary amenities will put the tertiary education system in Nigeria among the most reckoned within the globe.
What are the Procedures for becoming a Lecturer in Nigeria?
The journey of a thousand miles, according to a philosopher, starts with one step, same as the procedure in becoming a lecturer in the Nigerian hemisphere, in other to qualifies into having the share cut in the monthly Salary structure of Nigerian lecturers.
The journey starts with owing a tertiary degree qualification, which may be a university or polytechnic certificate, but the most preferred certification is the university degree qualification. This alone is not satisfactory as to what qualifies, but what grade you graduated with. Most openings always specify the minimum grade requirement for intended applicants, the higher the grade you graduated with (second class upper and above), the higher your chances of being considered, vis-à-vis with other skills and previous years of experience. Although some Nigerian institutions necessitate that a first-class graduate product would take up the role of lecturers.
Let it be that, before submitting an application for any lecturer job offer, you must take an assessment of yourself and found yourself to be teachable.
Most Nigeria Universities’ policies are to absorb back into the lecturing system their best products – students with an excellent grade, who are interested in lecturing on a full-time basis. Such students start their journey of becoming a lecturer by securing the duties of a Graduate Assistance (GA). This role is structured to tutor them on the required teaching skills with other basic phenomena required to be discharged by a university lecturer. This role gives room for such students to proceed with his/her studies while undergoing this compulsory, yet rewarding phase, for they are also based on salary.
The cons herein are just that their salaries are determined on what the institution academic board decided vis-à-vis with how they anticipate supporting their educational achievement, either to place them on full-time scholarship, which covers tuition fee and other basic allowances, or either of the duo, but the majority end up granted a full-scale scholarship to study overseas for their master degree program.
On the other hand, if you are less privileged to be considered for a Graduate Assistance offered by the university you graduated from, here are the prerequisites in becoming a lecturer and earning the salaries of lecturers in Nigeria.
- Be categorized among the second-class upper-division (2.1) or preferable first-class student
- Gain numerous on-field experience and skills in your field of specialization.
- Acquire good teaching expertise and techniques, especially with mature students.
- Acquire innovative research skills alongside statistical analysis tools.
- Uncountable good published research journal in both national and international journals.
- Excellent communication skills, especially with students effectively.
- Excellent time management competencies and Excellent writing skills
- Ability to comprehend student behavior
- Good scholar evaluation progress skills
What are the duties, responsibilities, and roles of Lectures?
For Nigeria lecturers to earn such an average monthly salary, there must be some responsibilities they must be saddled with to be discharged. You will quite agree with me here wholly that lecturers don’t solitary play the role of lecturing, most lecturers also provide other service area asides mentoring, lecturing like research, publication, supervisory among others. These other responsibilities do not negate the primary task of lecturers in Nigerian universities, which is to get relevant educational material ready and disseminate requisite knowledge and facts to students – this also embraces mutually the undergraduate and postgraduate scholars – alongside to test their learning ability via numerous platform available, both structurally and otherwise. The lecturer might also outspread their duties to other Nigerian universities apart from their domicile institution to exhibit organize and deliver seminar papers with other book publications.
Research is well-known with the lecturer, which connects to mostly their field of experience and are mostly sponsored by external bodies. Most researches are collectively executed by classes of lecturers either from the same or different institutes, depending on the nature and scope of the research methodology.
Here are the job duties, responsibilities, and role of Lectures in Nigerian universities.
- Designate, review, and also assess coursework as well as assessments.
- Conduct a research study in the field of expertise as well as publish findings in scholarly journals or books.
- Process research study programs of college students.
- May serve as a consultant to federal government firms, personal people, sector, and various other companies.
- May conduct lab or area research study sessions.
- Prepare program materials and implement them to students.
- Lecture several training courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students.
How to make extra salaries for yourself as a lecturer in Nigeria.
As x-rayed by the present trend of the lecturer’s perspective about salary ranges of university lecturers in Nigeria, which according to their opinion are small, and are not sufficient for them to take home, nevertheless, some of them are into some other private engagements which channel in for them some extra income.
Below are some extra engagements a Nigerian lecturer can divulge into as a means to make extra salaries for themselves to add up with their monthly salaries as a lecturer in Nigeria:
- Put in as a volunteer for NGO’s.
- Produce and allot learning material (handout, textbook, course material) for monetary gain – presently been flagged inappropriate by the NUC.
- Taking up some contract supervisory, production, managerial, and any other suitable role in some industries.
- enroll for an electoral officer during election periods
- Running individual business
- Run a specialize company
- Become an investor.
Read Also: Why Is Education Important? See Reasons
Conclusively
No good things come easy, as such is the procedure of becoming a lecturer in Nigeria. As most institution governing bodies are clamoring for improved welfare packages for the members, they should endeavor also to take a holistic approach in improving the Nigerian educational system as to be rated among the global. Quality research must be encouraged and facilitated at every institution of learning, which will contribute to the upgrading of the Nigerian education system.
Do you believe it worth being a lecturer in Nigeria? Make use of the comment session to let us know your opinion, for we will appreciate hearing your opinion vis-à-vis the salaries of lecturers in Nigeria. Express yourself about your opinion about Nigeria’s lecturer’s salaries.
I will commit myself to duties given the opportunity to lecture.
I no less agree that Nigerian lecturers salary be upwardly reviewed to curb incessant disruption of academic calendar that has almost become a norm in Nigeria public tertiary institutions Today