Nigeria’s education reform agenda gained fresh momentum in June 2026, as the federal government moved to promote digital transformation in basic education, expand access to student loans and renew calls for higher education spending.

The Universal Basic Education Commission unveiled a digital transformation roadmap and named 100 Digital Champions to support technology adoption in basic education. At the same time, the National Assembly moved to work with the Nigerian Education Loan Fund to expand the student loan scheme, while the Federal Ministry of Education renewed the call for federal and state governments to allocate at least 26 per cent of their annual budgets to education.

Together, these measures suggest a stronger push towards a more modern, data-driven and better-funded education system. Yet they also raise a familiar question: can Nigeria turn ambitious education policies into measurable improvements in classrooms and campuses? Persistent funding gaps, unreliable power supply, teacher shortages, insecurity around schools, weak infrastructure and uneven state-level implementation may determine whether June 2026 becomes a turning point for the sector or another cycle of policy pronouncements.

UBEC’s Digital Reform: 100 Champions to Drive Education Growth

One clear sign of the federal government’s commitment to reshaping the future of education came on June 15, when the Universal Basic Education Commission unveiled its Digital Transformation and Change Management Roadmap and launched its 100 Digital Champions to drive technology adoption and innovation across the country’s basic education sector.

The inauguration, which took place at UBEC headquarters in Abuja, brought together the 100 champions drawn from UBEC headquarters, departments, units, zonal offices and State Universal Basic Education Boards.

Dr Aisha Garba, Executive Secretary of UBEC, while speaking at the launch in Abuja, described the initiative as a landmark step towards building a modern, data-driven and future-ready institution capable of delivering quality education services more efficiently.

Dr Garba told stakeholders present at the inauguration that the roadmap provides a strategic framework for modernising the commission’s operations, while the 100 champions will serve as change agents and promote the adoption of digital tools and innovative work processes throughout the commission.

This initiative is a welcome development, especially in an era when technology is one of the major drivers of functional education, and the absence or near absence of it in the education sector is endangering the possibility of building a digitally enabled, data-driven future for Nigerian youths. However, one foreseeable challenge facing this initiative is scale. Although education is on Nigeria’s Concurrent Legislative List, basic education is legally and constitutionally the responsibility of state and local governments. UBEC can disburse matching grants and set standards; however, classroom connectivity at the state and local government levels depends on the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEB). Therefore, the key challenge is operationalisation: how can UBEC implement this initiative effectively within the limits of existing laws?

Further, there is also the issue of power supply. It is needless to state that the electricity supply in Nigeria remains unreliable even in major urban centres of the Federal Capital Territory. So, the question is, how can UBEC efficiently execute a digitally driven process in rural areas without reliable electricity? The success of the Roadmap will not be measured by the primary and post-primary schools in Maitama or the workshops in Abuja. Rather, it will be measured by whether or not a head teacher in a rural area or LGEA can access real-time enrolment data or digital lesson schedules.

Therefore, as UBEC pushes states towards a data-driven system, operationalisation, timing and the availability of infrastructure such as power become policy issues that must be addressed at policy and implementation levels.

The NELFUND Expansion: From 1.6 Million to 7 Million Beneficiaries

Just as the UBEC initiative targets primary and post-primary institutions in the country, another major policy in the month of June targets individuals and students of tertiary institutions. Against this background, the National Assembly is partnering with the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) to expand the student loan scheme from 1.6 million direct beneficiaries to 7 million students nationwide.

Barau Jibrin, Deputy Senate President, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja, while speaking at the national sensitisation programme on student loans organised by the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund in collaboration with NELFUND. He described the initiative as timely, emphasising that many indigent Nigerian students across the six geopolitical zones are waiting to benefit from the scheme.

It is important to note that this ambitious initiative forms part of efforts to drive national transformation, provide tuition support and increase access to education, and its expansion would make NELFUND one of the largest and most accessible federal government interventions or public schemes in West Africa and across Africa. However, a simple calculation raises serious fiscal questions. Based on the statement by Mr Akintunde Sawyerr, the Managing Director of NELFUND, at ₦176,250 for 1.6 million students, the disbursement would be ₦282 billion. If this is replicated for 7 million students, it will cost the federal government ₦1.23 trillion. This is not only a huge amount; it also raises questions of feasibility, especially against the current challenges of debt sustainability and given that the total budget proposal for the Education Ministry in 2026 is ₦2.4 trillion.

Again, there is also the question of the repayment framework as this initiative remains a loan to the beneficiaries. Suffice it to state that while the repayment framework has not been tested, recovery will certainly become an uphill task when, upon graduation, beneficiary students are unable to secure paid employment. Yet, another fundamental question is: how can one measure the benefit of this loan amid shortages of qualified lecturers or poorly remunerated lecturers in public tertiary institutions?

At this juncture, it is instructive to state categorically that tertiary institutions, particularly public institutions, are riddled with staffing and infrastructural gaps. Many tertiary institutions across the country do not have adequate access to power and internet connectivity. As such, pushing millions of students into under-resourced campuses risks producing graduates without the necessary skills or employment opportunities and turning NELFUND loans into future burdens.

Budget Benchmark and the National Policy on Education

The Federal Ministry of Education, through the National Policy on Education, recently advised both federal and state governments to allocate a minimum of 26 per cent of their annual budgets to education, while noting that all six states in the South-West region failed to meet the threshold.

Inadequate budgetary allocation and underfunding have remained persistent problems in the education sector at both the national and sub-national levels. Nigeria remains one of the countries yet to allocate 26 per cent of its budget to education as recommended by UNESCO. Recently, only a few states have been able to meet this budgetary requirement. This is a major challenge in this sector as most schools in Nigeria remain underfunded.

Although this challenge is not new, it has become more concerning because, despite increased revenues and higher Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) allocations to sub-national governments, several state governments, including those from the oil-rich states, could not meet this benchmark. Only a few states, including Anambra, Enugu, and Kano, met the threshold in their 2026 budgets, according to Nigeriaeducationnews.com.

Notwithstanding the relevance of the UNESCO recommendation as prescribed by the Federal Ministry of Education, through the National Policy on Education, one major challenge remains: education funding in Nigeria is split and shaped by the principles of fiscal federalism. A closer look shows that the federal budget covers public tertiary institutions, Unity Schools, and agencies such as UBEC, while the states fund most public primary and secondary institutions. This will definitely pose a serious challenge for states with very low Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), FAAC allocations and a high number of out-of-school children.

On a final note, the month of June 2026 may be remembered as the month when the Federal Government of Nigeria made a clear policy statement that education reform would be digital, data-driven, and designed to deliver quality services and outcomes. The 100 Digital Champions, the 7 million loan target, and the 26 per cent budget prescription for education at the three tiers of government all remain promising steps towards education modernisation.

Yet the same month reaffirms the popular aphorism: ”the oldest problems remain the hardest.” Funding challenges and budgeting, poor power supply, inadequate teachers and amenities, the rising number of out-of-school children, and, more importantly, insecurity and the activities of terrorists, kidnappers, and bandits prowling our learning environments leave much to be desired.