Nigeria is among the countries with the largest access-to-education crises globally. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Global Education Monitoring Report 2022 shows Nigeria has approximately 20 million out-of-school children, the highest number worldwide. The United Nations Children’s Fund further estimates that about 10.5 million primary school–age children are out of school. Despite interventions such as the Universal Basic Education program, access remains limited due to poverty, insecurity, and infrastructure gaps. Expanding physical classrooms alone will not solve this crisis. Nigeria needs community-based digital learning hubs, low-cost offline education technologies, and stronger partnerships with private EdTech providers to expand access to education.
Nigeria’s out-of-school crisis poses long-term risks to economic growth and social stability. According to the World Bank, learning poverty, the inability of a child to read and understand age-appropriate text by age 10, remains high. Millions of children without access to education face reduced employment prospects, reinforcing cycles of poverty and inequality. With a booming population, the existing school infrastructure is insufficient. If this gap persists, Nigeria risks losing the productive potential of a large segment of its youth population.
Community digital learning hubs provide a cost-effective way to expand access to education without requiring every child to own a personal device. These hubs can be in community centers, libraries, or existing school facilities, providing shared access to digital tools and structured learning content. By pooling resources, they significantly reduce the financial barriers that keep many children out of school.
In Nigeria, community-based education initiatives led by organizations such as Teach for Nigeria and Slum2School Africa have shown how localized interventions can reach underserved children. Integrating digital learning into such community-driven models can further expand their impact, especially in rural and conflict-affected areas where formal schooling is inconsistent.
Implementing community digital learning hubs would involve equipping centers with affordable devices, training local facilitators, and integrating curriculum-aligned digital content. Telecommunications companies can support this effort by offering subsidized or education-specific data plans. Decentralizing access to education and digital learning resources will enable community hubs to extend learning opportunities to children who would otherwise remain excluded. They will also introduce the children to foundational digital skills.
Offline and low-cost education technologies offer a practical solution for communities with limited or unreliable internet access. Many digital learning tools can operate without continuous connectivity by using preloaded content on devices or local servers, reducing reliance on expensive data and infrastructure.
In Nigeria, private EdTech platforms such as uLesson and Afrilearn already provide curriculum-based digital learning that is adaptable for low-bandwidth or offline environments. These platforms exemplify how technology can deliver quality education beyond traditional classrooms, even in resource-constrained settings.
Stakeholders like MTN Nigeria, Airtel Nigeria, and the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) should support the distribution of affordable devices and encourage developers to design low-data platforms. Organizations such as Teach for Nigeria and Slum2School Africa should train educators and facilitators to integrate these tools into teaching. Lowering the infrastructure requirements for offline technologies will enable expanding access to education across underserved regions and reaching children who remain excluded from formal schooling.
Strengthening partnerships with private EdTech innovators is essential for expanding education access at scale. While governments often face funding and implementation constraints, private-sector actors bring innovation, flexibility, and the ability to scale solutions quickly.
Organizations such as Ingressive for Good and AltSchool Africa are already expanding access to digital skills and alternative learning pathways across Africa. Leveraging such actors will allow the government to build on existing systems rather than creating new ones from scratch.
Creating enabling policies that attract private investment, supporting device financing schemes for low-income families, and partnering with telecommunications companies to deliver subsidized education data plans will help expand access to education. Civil society organizations should complement these efforts by providing tailored support to vulnerable communities.
Aligning public goals with private innovation will ensure these partnerships expand access to education more efficiently and sustainably. Such partnerships will allow digital learning programs, subsidized data initiatives, and device financing schemes to respond to demand, adaptability, and measurable impact.
Nigeria’s out-of-school crisis requires solutions that go beyond increasing the number of traditional classrooms. Community learning hubs, offline technologies, and private-sector partnerships provide practical pathways to reach underserved children. These approaches will build a more flexible and inclusive education system that extends learning opportunities beyond formal structures. Expanding access in this way will improve individual outcomes and also strengthen Nigeria’s long-term economic resilience.
Precious Akintulubo is a writing fellow at African Liberty.
TheCable is a co-publisher of this article.
Photo by Victor Nnakwe on Unsplash.