Nigeria must stop measuring education by certificates alone
By Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi
Nigeria has spent years asking whether children are going to school. We should now be asking a harder question: what are they actually learning when they get there?
The distinction matters because attendance and learning are not the same thing. The latest education assessment highlighted by The Guardian, drawing on UNICEF analysis, shows the scale of the problem. In 2022, 49 per cent of Primary 3 learners, 67 per cent of Primary 5 learners and 86 per cent of Junior Secondary 2 learners did not reach minimum proficiency in mathematics. UNICEF also reported that about 30 per cent of learners who reached Junior Secondary 3 in 2021 did not possess foundational reading skills expected to have been acquired much earlier. These figures should change the way we discuss education reform.
For too long, success has often been described through enrolment numbers, examination results, graduation figures and certificates. Those indicators matter, but they cannot tell us whether a child can read with understanding, solve a basic mathematical problem, communicate effectively, use technology or apply knowledge to real-life situations.
The teacher sits at the centre of this challenge. The Guardian report notes significant gaps in digital access and teachers’ ICT capacity, alongside limitations in infrastructure and internet access. We cannot expect teachers to prepare young Nigerians for an economy increasingly shaped by digital technologies and artificial intelligence when many teachers themselves have limited access to the tools and training required to navigate that environment. This is where education reform needs to become more practical.
Teacher development should not be treated as an occasional workshop. Teachers need continuous professional development connected to what they actually encounter in classrooms. If the curriculum expects digital learning, teachers need the digital skills and infrastructure to deliver it. If students are expected to develop problem-solving skills, classroom practice must give teachers the tools and time to move beyond memorisation. If Nigeria wants stronger STEM participation, practical science cannot depend on whether a particular school has received an external donation of equipment.
The curriculum also has to respond to the economy young Nigerians are entering. The report rightly points to the growing importance of communication, digital competence, adaptability, confidence, writing and practical skills. A university degree remains valuable, but a certificate on its own cannot guarantee that a graduate can solve problems, work with others, use technology or create value.
This does not mean abandoning academic education. It means making academic education more useful.
Technical and vocational education deserves a much stronger place in Nigeria’s education strategy. Young people should be able to develop practical skills alongside academic pathways, with credible progression routes into further education, entrepreneurship and employment. Universities, polytechnics, colleges and vocational institutions should also have stronger relationships with employers so that curricula reflect changing economic realities.But none of this can work without better information about what students are actually learning.
Nigeria needs to move from measuring inputs and activities to measuring learning and progression. We should know where foundational literacy and numeracy are weakest, which groups of children are falling behind, which interventions are improving outcomes and which ones are not. We should be able to connect teacher training, infrastructure investment and learning interventions to measurable changes in student outcomes.
That requires better education data at the level where learning actually happens: the child, the classroom and the school. A school should not be considered successful simply because it has teachers on its payroll, students on its register and classrooms on its premises. We should also be asking whether students are attending consistently, whether they are acquiring foundational skills, whether teachers have the capacity to teach effectively and whether the resources provided to the school are producing measurable improvements.
Nigeria has a large and youthful population. That population can become a powerful economic asset, but only if the education system develops the capabilities that the economy needs. The cost of getting this wrong is not limited to poor examination results. It affects employability, productivity, innovation and the country’s ability to compete.
The goal of education reform therefore has to be bigger than producing graduates. It should be about producing young Nigerians who can read, reason, create, adapt, work and contribute. The certificate should be evidence that learning happened. It should not be the substitute for proving that it did.
- Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi, CEO of Do Take Action, is an independent consultant on edtech, climate change, public policy, and women’s procurement empowerment
