Home Lessons: Why Some Nigerian Teachers Now Earn More After School

"The home lessons are what keep me afloat."

That's Mr Isaac. He teaches at a private school in Abuja, and his school pays him ₦150,000 a month. Then, on weekdays and weekends, he runs about three home lessons. He told Leadership newspaper those lessons bring in nearly double his salary.

He's not the only one. Ask around any staff room and you'll hear the same story. For a lot of Nigerian teachers, the job that pays the bills now starts after the closing bell.

So what's going on? And if you're a teacher thinking about it, how do you do it well?

Why the after-school hours pay more

Let's start with the obvious bit. Many teachers simply aren't paid enough. Leadership found private school teachers in Abuja earning anywhere from about ₦30,000 to ₦500,000 a month, depending on the school. When food, rent and transport eat the whole salary, lessons stop being "extra money". They become the money.

Here's how the paper put it after speaking to teachers in Abuja and Lagos:

"Several teachers who spoke to LEADERSHIP said they now earn more from private tuition than from their formal teaching jobs." Leadership, 2026

One of them, Moses, used to earn ₦80,000 a month as a classroom teacher. He now tutors full time, charges between ₦50,000 and ₦100,000 per client depending on the subject and hours, and says he makes over ₦200,000 a month.

By our sum, that's 2.5 times his old salary. And because he charges ₦50,000 to ₦100,000 per client, just two to four families pay him more than his whole classroom job did.

Parents are feeling the squeeze too

On the other side of the table, parents are paying more for everything.

School fees went up again this September. Vanguard found many private schools had raised their charges by 30 to 40 per cent. The National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN) begged them to hold back.

"It should not be more than 20 per cent increase." Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, NAPTAN, September 2026

Exam fees add to it. For 2026, the official WAEC fee for school candidates was reported at about ₦27,500 to ₦28,000. In June 2026 the government announced a plan to raise it to ₦50,000 for 2027, but after a public outcry it suspended that plan in July. So for now, the old fee stands.

Here's something most people miss. By our sum, the WAEC fee actually got cheaper compared with wages. The ₦18,000 fee for 2022 was 60% of a month's ₦30,000 minimum wage. Today's ₦27,500 is 39% of ₦70,000. The ₦50,000 plan would have pushed it back up to 71%.

The trouble is, some schools charge far more than the official fee. In December 2025, Benue State's exams board ordered Jewel Model School in Makurdi to reverse the ₦106,000 it had asked parents to pay for WAEC and NECO, when the approved WAEC fee was ₦28,000 plus a handling charge of no more than ₦5,000. By our count, that's 3.2 times the most the school was allowed to charge, or a month and a half of minimum wage. WAEC knows about this.

"We know in the past that schools have been charging more than the examination fee." Suleiman Kum, Head of WAEC's Nigeria office, October 2026

When parents have spent that much just to register, they really want their child to pass. That's a big part of why good lesson teachers stay busy.

The part nobody likes to talk about

Mr Isaac was honest about the cost of all this, and it's worth hearing.

"Since home lessons pay more, the mind is drawn there." Mr Isaac, a teacher in Abuja, speaking to Leadership

He wasn't confessing to skipping his classes. He was naming a real risk. When your evenings earn more than your days, it's easy for your best energy to drift. If you're going to do this, you need to plan for that from the start.

So what do lesson teachers charge?

Honestly, it varies a lot by city, subject and class. There's no national price list. The best recent figure we found is the one above: ₦50,000 to ₦100,000 per client a month, for a full-time tutor in Abuja.

If you're working out your own price, here's a made-up example just to show the maths. Say you run three small group lessons a week, with three to five students in each, and charge ₦5,000 per student per lesson. That's ₦45,000 to ₦75,000 a week. Change the numbers to match your area and your subject, and you'll quickly see what makes sense for you.

How to run lessons well, without burning out

If you're already doing this, or about to start, these habits help.

1. Teach the exam, not just the subject

Parents aren't paying for "Physics". They're paying for a WAEC, NECO, JAMB or Common Entrance result. Learn how each exam asks its questions, and say clearly which exam you prepare students for.

2. Keep groups small

Three to five students is a good size. You can still mark everyone's work properly, results stay good, and parents keep coming back. You also earn more per hour than with one student at a time.

3. Build a bank of materials

Worked past questions, short revision notes and recorded explanations can be used again with the next group. The work you do once keeps paying off, term after term.

4. Protect your day job

Give your evenings a hard stop, the same way a second job would have one. Get enough sleep. Your class deserves your best hours too, and a burnt-out teacher is no good to anyone.

5. Check your school's rules about your own pupils

Taking paid lessons with students you already teach in class can look like a conflict of interest, and some schools don't allow it. Find out what your school expects before you agree to anything.

6. Let your results set your price

Keep a simple record of where each student started and how they finished. A teacher who can show real progress can charge more than one offering general revision, and parents are happy to pay for it.

Taking your lessons online

Travelling across town for every lesson eats your time and your money. Teaching online lets you reach more students and cut the transport.

On Scholarleveling, you can run live classes with a shared whiteboard, set quizzes, and give parents a code so they can see how their child is doing. It works on any phone. It's free to join and your first month is free. If students join through your own link, there's no commission on them, though a small collection charge applies if you let the app bill parents for you.

Whichever way you teach, the point is the same. If home lessons are already part of your income, treat them like the real business they are: clear prices, good records, and limits that protect you.

Read next: how Nigerian teachers earn dollars from home, or where to sell courses in Nigeria and get paid.