Strengthening Nigeria’s education value-chain for holistic teaching-learning outcome speaks to bridging the gap between schooling and real-world capability.
For some years, Nigeria’s education system portrays two sides of a coin depending on the side you stand. To one end, the system portrays a decaying structure in need of urgent revamping – while the other end paints a picture of progressive learning institutions mostly driven by private interests.
From primary classrooms to tertiary institutions and vocational pathways, each stage of the value chain operates in isolation, producing graduates who often lack the skills, mindset, and resilience the economy demands.
According to educationists and media specialists, Nigerians must treat learning as one continuous process, and not in its disconnected stages.
They also posited that policy makers should align curriculum design, teacher development, infrastructure, assessment, and industry linkages to strengthen the value chain with employable, and civic-minded graduates.
When these links hold, education stops being just a certificate and becomes a driver of productivity, innovation, and social cohesion.
The challenge isn’t a lack of policy or effort. It’s fragmentation. Fixing it requires looking at the whole chain, finding where value leaks, and rebuilding those points with data, accountability, and partnership at the center.
“When there is excessive student population, the infrastructural facilities will not be adequate to accommodate the students,” John Olorunmaiye, department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria, said in a lecture titled, ‘Advancing Engineering Education in Nigeria: Progress, Challenges and Prospects.’
The lecture was given in commemoration of the retirement of Professor Omotayo Fakinlede from the department of Systems Engineering, University of Lagos, and held at UNILAG Design Studio, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lagos.
Olorunmaiye, a professor of Mechanical Engineering said both the formative and summative assessments of students’ academic outputs are important in teaching and learning.
According to him, they give feedback to both the students concerned and lecturers on how much the students have learned in the course and how much the students have attained the course learning outcomes and the relevant programme outcomes.
“A challenge for over ten years, to good assessment of students’ academic performance is the adoption of computer-based test (CBT) which is based on multiple choice questions (MCQ). The use of MCQs has limitations in assessing students fairly and well,” Olorunmaiye said.
Building the postgraduate talents pool
The building blocks of any educational institution is the ability to attract and retain top talents for teaching across the different spheres of the ecosystem.
However, it is increasingly becoming difficult to retain some of Nigeria’s top talents to the academic sector because of the condition of service they get in the industry and in some foreign countries.
“Even though a new condition of service, which is better than the former one, has been negotiated for academic staff of universities, it seems to be a case of too little, too late,” Olorunmaiye said.
According to him, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is currently threatening to go on strike because of the distorted implementation of the 2025 agreement entered with the Federal Government (FG).
Experts are of the view that a progressive solution to the problem of poorly motivated lecturers is to improve the condition of service further, at least to the average for African universities and keep reviewing it regularly to keep pace with inflation so that the purchasing power of lecturers is not eroded.
“The danger we face now is that dedicated old lecturers are dying or retiring and the younger lecturers in an attempt not to follow the footsteps of these lecturers may turn the job to a part-time job while pretending to be full-time lecturers,” he said.
According to him, the lecturers will have less contact with the students because they have little time for the students. “The solution to the problem of inadequate number of lecturers is to train more lecturers by encouraging more graduates to go for postgraduate studies.”
Olorunmaiye added that even if many of the lecturers are lost to industry or foreign countries, there would still be enough students with postgraduate degrees to take up teaching in universities.
Laying emphasis on encouraging engineering graduates to go for postgraduate studies, Olorunmaiye said Nigeria institutions need to make adequate financial support provision for postgraduate students to be on full-time programmes like is done in some developed countries.
“For us to attract a good number of high-calibre postgraduate students to engineering programmes, there is a need to allow engineering lecturers to include provision for monthly stipend for the postgraduate students they want to supervise while applying for research grants.”
He also advocated for Graduate Assistantship (teaching) in the Nigerian University system for postgraduate students so that they can be remunerated for marking assignments, laboratory reports and also organise tutorials for undergraduate students.
Elijah Adegoke Adebayo, a professor of Industrial Microbiology, department of Pure and Applied Biology, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, said postgraduate students should be exposed to workshops on usage and handling of various machines and equipment.
According to him, the university system must deepen mentorship on manuscript writing and development of new techniques and modification of techniques.
He added that it is essential for postgraduate students to get exposure to scientific conferences to build insights on various research and collaboration areas/methods.
Improving access to basic education & supporting school retention
According to UNICEF, millions of children in Nigeria are still at risk of missing out on foundational education.
While improving access remains critical, sustained support and encouragement also play an important role in helping out-of-school children remain engaged and motivated.
In closing the gap within the Nigerian basic education system, PalmPay Young Stars, an initiative that seeks to empower the future leaders of the country recently brought smiles to the faces of some pupils in Opebi Primary School.
The initiative awarded a scholarship to
Nana Sani, a Primary 4 pupil at Opebi Primary School in Lagos, after she emerged as the best-performing student in her school under the PalmPay Young Stars initiative.
It was a proud and emotional moment for her mother, who has worked hard to ensure she completes her elementary education. Stories like Nana’s reflect the reality for many families across Nigeria.
Every day children go to school with the hope that education will lead to a better future. But for many the journey is shaped by financial pressure and other barriers that can make staying in school more difficult.
“This is why PalmPay launched Young Stars, an initiative created to recognise and reward high-performing pupils in public primary schools at an important stage in their development,” Samuel Oluyemi, the chief operating officer at PalmPay, stated.
According to him, the initiative was designed not only to celebrate academic excellence, but also to encourage ambition, confidence and a stronger commitment to learning.
He added that through the programme, 60 outstanding pupils received support to help them stay focussed on their education and continue working towards brighter opportunities ahead.
Oluyemi gave the students a short financial literacy workshop while encouraging them to strive for the best notwithstanding circumstances, at the official presentation ceremony held at Adeniyi Jones and St. Peter’s Primary schools.
Abaleke, one of the parents of the scholarship recipients expressed profound gratitude to PalmPay: “I am happy and I can’t express the amount of joy in my heart. I’m overwhelmed by this opportunity PalmPay has given to my child. I’m grateful to PalmPay for this scholarship, may God reward their efforts with success.”
At the presentation event held at Adeniyi Jones Primary School, the assistant head teacher said in his opening address: “We sincerely appreciate our sponsor (PalmPay), guests, parents, and every individual present here for your support and commitment towards empowering the next generation.
“To all the beneficiaries, this scholarship is not just financial support, but a motivation to strive for excellence and achieve greater success in life.”
The effect of initiatives like Young Stars extends far beyond the award recipients. It brings hope to families, motivates teachers, and most importantly, it helps shape a generation that values education; supporting school retention one child at a time.
Through this initiative, PalmPay is nurturing potential, strengthening communities, and helping to build the foundation for a stronger Nigeria.
The NELFUND narrative
The introduction of student loans disbursed by the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) to cover various charges by the universities and also give monthly stipend has been described as a welcome development by the Tinubu administration.
However, some analysts argued that it is not being well implemented, with many students on the loan scheme not getting paid the monthly stipend for months.
“I hope a good loan recovery mechanism has been put in place for NELFUND to be able to recover these loans so that government will not continue to put in large sum of seed money indefinitely into the scheme and it will gradually move closer to becoming a revolving loan scheme,” said Olorunmaiye.
The professor of Mechancal Engineering also advocated for loan scheme to be extended to Nigerian postgraduate students.
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