The President of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mr. Leye Kupoluyi, has declared that Nigeria’s instructional system has funding, entry, know-how and coverage misalignment issues.
Kupoluyi declared this on Thursday on the chamber’s schooling convention with the theme “Technology, Policy and Access: Building Inclusive Education Systems for the Future,” the place he tasked the non-public sector to co-invest in creating instructional infrastructure.
The LCCI’s president identified that know-how, coverage, and entry should not three separate panels at the moment however are three legs of the identical chair that this chamber intends to assist construct.
He mentioned: “Nigeria’s schooling story is, at its core, a enterprise story: it determines the workforce we rent, the customers we promote to, and the nation we commerce in. I wish to make that case in 5 numbers.
“Nigeria does not have an education funding problem alone; it has an access, technology, and policy misalignment, and closing that gap is the single highest-return investment available to this chamber.”
He said that Nigeria is host to one of many largest out-of-school populations on earth that’s measured within the tens of hundreds of thousands, not hundreds, which meant that roughly one in 5 of the world’s out-of-school kids is a Nigerian.
According to him, UNICEF’s 2024 information put the determine at roughly 18.3 million kids out of faculty, which is comprised of 10.2 million on the main degree and eight.1 million on the secondary degree.
He remarked that federal authorities’s funding nonetheless falls effectively under the benchmark wanted to shut that hole.
The president of LCCI mentioned that 2026 federal finances allotted N3.52 trillion to schooling, which represented 6.1 per cent of N58.18 trillion in complete spending, in opposition to UNESCO’s 15–20 per cent world benchmark and the 26 per cent threshold set out in Nigeria’s National Policy on Education.
He nonetheless famous that some state governments like Enugu, Kano and Jigawa have chosen to fund schooling at scale, implying that the mannequin already exists substantial funding of schooling by governments which have the political will.
Kupoluyi mentioned that “Enugu allocated 32.2 per cent of its 2026 budget to education; Kano committed N405.3 billion (30 per cent), and Jigawa committed N234.5 billion (26 per cent),” that are “proof that the recommended benchmark is achievable within Nigeria’s existing fiscal envelope once political will aligns with policy.”
The LCCI mentioned that financing innovation is already proving that scale is feasible as soon as the precise instrument is in place.
It mentioned: “The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has disbursed over N32 billion to college students since 2024, and Nigeria’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy now commits to equipping 70 per cent of younger Nigerians aged 16–35, half of them ladies, with AI-relevant abilities by 2029.
“Our members in the Education Group are potential employers who will absorb that talent if the pipeline is built correctly.”
He additionally mentioned that connectivity, the infrastructure beneath each EdTech promise, crossed the midway mark solely in November 2025, however famous that the hole is concentrated precisely the place entry is worst significantly within the northern Nigeria.
“Broadband penetration rose to 50.58 per cent in November 2025, up from 44.43 per cent a year earlier, but that still leaves roughly half the country, disproportionately rural, northern households, without the connection a digital classroom requires,” he mentioned.
Kupoluyi said that the non-public sector’s position is to not watch for the subsequent finances cycle however to co-invest within the infrastructure and abilities that make at the moment’s finances work more durable.
He mentioned that going ahead, instructional success ought to be measured not solely by enrolment and commencement charges but in addition by employability and productiveness outcomes.
Dike Onwuamaeze
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