Abstract
Teacher job commitment is essential for sustaining quality teaching and improving students’ outcomes, yet many teachers in Nigeria face conditions that weaken dedication to the profession, which includes heavy workloads, poor remuneration, limited resources, and weak administrative support. This paper aimed to examines teachers’ self-efficacy as a key requirement for strengthening job commitment in the Nigerian education system. Guided by Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, the paper explains how teachers’ beliefs about their capability to teach effectively in order to influence persistence, classroom management, motivation, professional identity, and willingness to go beyond minimum job expectations. The paper highlights evidence linking high self-efficacy with greater job satisfaction, resilience, reduced burnout, improved performance, and stronger commitment, while low self-efficacy is associated with disengagement and attrition. The paper also identifies systemic barriers that undermine self-efficacy and commitment in Nigeria, such as inadequate infrastructure, unsafe school environments, inconsistent professional development, policy instability, and psychosocial stress. Finally, it proposes practical strategies for improving teacher self-efficacy and commitment, including continuous training, mentoring, supportive school leadership, stress-reduction initiatives, collaborative school culture, fair administrative practices, and improved working conditions. Conclusively, strengthening teacher self-efficacy is presented as a realistic pathway for enhancing commitment and advancing educational outcomes in Nigeria.
Keywords: Teachers, Job Commitment, Self-efficacy, Bandura’s Self-efficacy Theory, Profession