A while back, I sat in an office pitching for funding to build infrastructure for a mid-premium educational experience. I expected questions about value proposition, results and track record. Instead, the questions were about how long I’d grovelled and begged parents to come to my school.

That conversation told me something important: the problem with education in Nigeria isn’t the schools, and it isn’t a lack of enthusiasm to meet global standards. The problem is that society itself isn’t ready to demand — or pay for — the kind of education that gives children a real head start.

Parents and communities aren’t gravitating toward schools with proven track records or the best shot at helping their children excel. Instead, they choose schools based on price point. Then they expect those schools to deliver services well beyond what that price point can sustain. It’s a system that punishes ambition and rewards the cheapest bidder.

The two camps
The real answer lies in the balance between academics and self-expression — not in tilting hard toward either end. On one side, some believe schools should stick to academics only, questioning anything that looks like self-expression until they produce students who are academically sound but poorly equipped for careers outside the traditional professions. On the other end, some schools lean so heavily into co-curricular activities that cultural events and presentations become the main event — leaving students with a broad understanding of the world, but weaker academic grades.

Plenty of mid-market schools already understand this and try to strike that balance. The problem isn’t the attempt — it’s that they’re doing it without the funding, infrastructure, or trained staff to pull it off well. Balance takes resources: qualified teachers who can facilitate both rigorous academics and meaningful self-expression, proper labs and materials, and the runway to develop a program instead of assembling one on a shoestring. Without that support, even schools with the right philosophy end up stretched thin, delivering neither strong academics nor real skill-building — and that’s a big part of why so many shut down within a few years, only for new ones to open in their place, attempting the same balancing act with the same lack of support.

Premium schools, by contrast, don’t face this trade-off — not because they’ve cracked some secret formula, but because they can afford both: smaller class sizes, specialist staff for the arts and sports alongside strong academics, and facilities that support all of it at once. The balance mid-market schools are reaching for isn’t a mystery. It’s a budget line.

Formal education still matters, even outside “Traditional” careers
Here’s an unpopular opinion: many Africans choose careers not by interest or skill, but by income percentile — and increasingly, by immigration prospects. It’s learning for survival, not for impact or self-expression.

But every industry that exists contributes to the economy, which means every industry has potential — if it’s understood and valued. A society that only fuels the industries it already recognises as valuable is a society running on limited knowledge. And a society built on limited knowledge can’t reach its full potential.

This is where balancing formal and informal education matters. It’s not wishful thinking — the OECD’s lifelong learning and recognition-of-prior-learning frameworks show that operationalising both formal and vocational education leads to real economic prosperity.

I saw this play out while watching Bovi on “Curiosity Made Me Ask.” From the conversation, you could tell this was an educated comedian — his recent live shows echo a clear Dave Chappelle influence. Chappelle himself has spoken about attending drama school to learn stage presence. Asake is another example: exceptional artistic expression, and yes — he went to school. Even in “non-traditional” professions, formal education sharpens the craft, whether directly or through the educated people these industries hire. If you’re still on the “school is a scam” path, it might be time to reconsider.

What needs to change

The shift that could up-swing our educational system — and by extension, our economy — starts at the foundation: elementary school. It starts with a world-standard curriculum, systemically trained teachers, and teachers equipped with enough resources to act as facilitators of experiential learning, not just instructors reciting notes.

Beyond the classroom, we need:

• Real funding opportunities for schools and teachers, backed by a government budget that reflects genuine commitment to educational reform

• Grants for schools and for specialized teachers

• Structured teacher training on implementing an optimised curriculum, standardised across both public and private schools

• Better regulation across the sector, with pricing controls and grade-level school categories

• Infrastructure that lets schools generate additional income, not just deliver lessons

• District-managed school buses and standardised, well-funded public schools

Without this, we’ll keep watching the same cycle: mid-market schools shutting down every year, replaced by new ones convinced they’ll do better, only to meet the same fate. Meanwhile, the gap between education for the poor and the rich deepens with every year that passes without funding — and you can see it happening in real time. Walk around Lagos today and you’ll find a growing number of ultra-premium schools, some with government endorsement, offering a world-class experience to families who can afford it. Nothing wrong with that. But it also means the distance between what the top 1% gets and what everyone else gets keeps widening, with nothing closing the gap in between.

Every child deserves the same quality of foundational education as that 1% — not necessarily the same plush environment or connections, those are earned — but equal access to an education that lets them become positive, capable contributors to society.

A non-delusional close

This is my vision for the next generation. I’m not naive enough to believe any of it happens overnight, or even within the next ten years, systemic change included.

But real change starts with a shift in what we, as a society, decide is urgent enough to show up for. We show up in full force for owambe — the aso-ebi is sewn weeks in advance, the caterers are booked, no expense is spared, because we’ve collectively decided it matters. That instinct isn’t the problem; it’s proof we’re fully capable of urgency and sacrifice when something is important enough. The question is why that same energy doesn’t show up for a child sitting in a classroom with no textbooks, or a teacher going unpaid for months. Both deserve that level of seriousness. Only one currently gets it.

I’ll know real change is coming the day funding a child’s education gets the same common-sense urgency as a Saturday owambe.

Tobi Ita; Director of School, Sang Bleu Elementary.