Why teachers deserve very high salaries

What is the big deal if a classroom teacher, be it in the primary or secondary school, is paid N200,000? After all, they are very important like those that work in other lucrative sectors of the economy, such as petroleum, banking and so on. Or don’t we truly value their roles in the society as we pretend to? Every government comes in and preaches about moving the standard of education upward, but it keeps dipping every year. If we don’t value teachers that have an NCE then perhaps we should train them better and take them their skills notches higher. Teaching should be for the intelligent and those that have excelled. The government will be surprised to see the number of Nigerian intellectuals that would switch to the classroom if the pay is respectable. But for now it is not.
Benson Gimba, Kakuri, Kaduna State.