We aim to support five million learners to develop skills the future requires – Olateju

Africa’s most populous black nation, Nigeria, accounts for roughly 20.2 million children and youth out of school. This figure makes Nigeria by far the biggest contributor in Sub-Saharan Africa. The country’s education landscape still grapples with a learning crisis, millions of children in school but not learning, overstretched teachers, and systems struggling to respond at scale. Mo Adefeso-Olateju, founding CEO of The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre, in this interview shares her assessment of the education landscape in Nigeria and the future opportunities open to the sector if well managed. She also shared her experiences at the helm of affairs at the TEP centre for over a decade and the organisation’s plans to support five million learners to develop the breadth of skills that the future requires, with the support of policymakers and the private sector. sector. EMMANUEL SALAWU bribrings the excerpts:

How would you assess the education landscape in Nigeria, and what growth outlook do you foresee for the sector in 2026?

Nigeria’s education landscape today is one of deep contradiction. On one hand, we are grappling with a learning crisis, millions of children in school but not learning, overstretched teachers, and systems struggling to respond at scale. On the other hand, there is growing honesty about the problem, with ecosystem-level conversations helping to shape the future of education in the country.

In 2026, I expect the sector to be more evidence-aware and more transformation-oriented, with particular attention paid to deepening educational foundations at early grade levels, and exploring pathways for rapid technological integration in teaching and learning, with a particular focus on Artificial Intelligence.

How would you describe the role and contribution of organisations like yours in transforming education systems across Nigeria and beyond?

The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre plays an important ecosystem orchestration role. We sit at the nexus of policy intention and implementation and bridge the gap between evidence and decision-making. The P in our name is ‘Partnership’, and we actively forge collaborative relationships between and among public and non-state stakeholders

In terms of impact, since 2014, The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre has reached over one million children, engaged more than 100,000 households, and supported learning assessments across thousands of schools, and we’ve seen that when data is collected in a trust-based way, action follows. Over the past decade, TEP has delivered more than 50 complex projects, supported over 5,000 educators, and convened thousands of stakeholders through platforms like the annual Nigerian Education Innovation Summit and EdMeets series.

Our contribution has been rooted in our demonstrable research expertise and our convening capacity, through which we strengthen stakeholders with the data, evidence and local expertise required to strengthen evidence-informed decision making for our education system. Increasingly, our role is extending beyond Nigeria, as other Africans recognise the value of our model and learn from our experience.

What structural challenges do you see as most critical for the education sector in Nigeria today, and what do you see as the way forward?

Our most critical challenge appears to be weak system coherence. This shows up in several ways. For example, policies exist, but implementation is challenging. Large-scale data is collected but insufficiently used for transformation at the pedagogical level. The provision of teaching and learning materials is insufficient to meet the expectations of the curriculum.

We require more teachers, but our initial teacher training programmes struggle to equip teachers with the breadth and quality of skills they need, and when these trainees become practising teachers, in-service training is not typically driven by the specific needs of the individual teacher. In the last 11 years, The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre has observed this systemic issue in coherence and continues to deploy several approaches to surface gaps in the educational policymaking, processes and outcomes.

TEP is over a decade old. How do these milestones reflect the organisation’s approach to innovation and long-term relevance in the education sector?

Our milestones reflect patience and intentionality. Innovation at The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre is cultural to us. In 2014, we established the regional hub of the Center for Education Innovation, pioneering a shift toward innovation, sustainability and scaling.

The following year, we launched the NEDIS Education Innovation Summit, which is now in its 8th year. A couple of years later, we also established the National Innovation Coalition on Education, which is a thriving community of knowledge and practice that hosts monthly webinars on topical subjects in education. Innovation is one of our values and is deeply embedded in our philosophy as an organisation.

In 2014, we pioneered Nigeria’s citizen-led assessment of learning; LEARNgeria. This is an ambitious multi-stakeholder effort to assess learning outcomes at the foundational level. For the first time, representatives of the public sector, including the federal and state ministries of education, the national Bureau of Statistics, the National Population Commission, NERDC, partnered with civil society organisations, academics and communications experts to design and implement a survey of 22,000 households and 41,000 children across Nigeria.

The initial results sent shockwaves into our national system and spurred several initiatives that continue to strengthen foundational learning systems. We didn’t stop there. We developed low-tech remedial programmes that improved literacy outcomes by up to 37 percentage points in rural and peri-urban communities across Nigeria.

As part of the FCDO-funded Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria, we innovated an approach that highlighted how children in private schools are often unaccounted for in national school census activities, such that we have an inflated number of children who are out of school.

Through our remedial programmes, we have trained hundreds of educators to address learning poverty so that children can learn to read in just 6 weeks. Furthermore, our technical expertise in numeracy remediation is helping teachers across the country deepen their skills in math instruction. Our approach to innovation is therefore intentional, strategic, and focused on a systems approach to addressing challenges in the sector

Being over a decade old is itself a statement. It reflects our commitment to learning, adaptation, and long-term partnerships. We have stayed relevant by evolving with the system and asking new questions as old ones are answered.

Beyond the services the organisation provides, how does TEP view its role in supporting productivity, skills development, and long-term human capital growth?

We see education as the foundation of productivity and national development. Everything else: skills, innovation, and economic growth, rest on whether children learn early and well. That belief shapes all our work at The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre. By adopting a systems approach to our work with learners, teachers, parents, communities, policymakers and the private sector, we are investing upstream both in the foundations and the fabric of human development. Thus far, we have supported over 5,000 educators and reached more than one million learners, building both a potential and current workforce that can adapt, create, and contribute meaningfully over a lifetime.

From your experience leading TEP, what leadership priorities are most critical when managing an organisation like this in Nigeria?

Leadership in this context requires clarity, resilience, and integrity. As the founder of The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre, one of my most important priorities has been staying anchored to purpose, especially when funding cycles, policy shifts, or external pressures tempt organisations to drift.

Another priority is building people. Our work depends on strong teams who can think critically, engage respectfully with the government, and hold themselves to high ethical standards. We not only have a committed workforce, but we also have a vibrant associates network (TEPCAN), which is a pool of talented experts, many of whom were trained by TEP. This network is helping to solve several pressing challenges in the sector

Leadership requires humility. The education sector teaches you quickly that no one has all the answers. The ability to listen to our data, communities, and young people has been essential to our legacy and impact.

What strategic levers will drive TEP’s growth over the next decade?

The next decade for The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre will be defined by scaling the depth of impact we already make. Strategically, we are focused on expanding our reach across Africa while maintaining the rigour that defines our work. Our goals are to support five million learners to develop the breadth of skills that the future requires, equip and connect 20,000 educators in Global Majority countries, and strengthen education ecosystems through a unique fellowship designed for early-career education professionals. Our future will be powered by strong teams distributed around Africa and the world, and through innovative technologies that help us efficiently nurture the potential in our learners and their educators. These are ambitious goals, but grounded in our deep belief in the possibilities that abound through the work that we do.

We will continue to focus on key levers such as deepening partnerships with governments, investing further in research and data systems, and strengthening platforms for sector learning and collaboration. Most importantly, we will continue to centre African leadership and evidence-based education transformation.