Nigeria Is Training Teachers For A World That No Longer Exists

In many ways, we are still training teachers for classrooms that no longer exist in their entirety. As a curriculum scholar, a teacher educator, and a Frederick N. Andrews Fellow at Purdue University, working in curriculum design and teacher preparation across diverse learning environments, I see a growing disconnect in Nigeria’s education system.

I have spent years grappling with a question that remains largely unasked in our education system: “Are we preparing teachers for the realities of learning as it actually exists”? The honest answer is no. Nigeria’s education system continues to operate within a narrow understanding of teaching – one that places the classroom at the center of all learning, and assumes learning happens primarily within formal classrooms and stable institutions. Teacher preparation follows this same logic.

From Colleges of Education – whether technical, special, or general – to university faculties, educators are trained primarily to function within structured, formal environments defined by curriculum guides, assessment systems, and institutional expectations. But the world has moved far beyond this model.

This gap is not theoretical; it is visible across Nigeria’s education Landscape.
Across the country, learning is already happening outside the conventional school system, both in complex and often unstable environments – internally displaced persons camps, conflict-affected communities, correctional facilities, refugee learning centres, and underserved rural areas. These are not marginal spaces; they are central to the challenge of achieving equitable education. Yet, teacher education preparation has not kept pace with this reality.

That disconnect raised an important question: What kind of learning, and whose knowledge, are we preparing teachers to value?
Personally, this question has shaped my academic work. In recent scholarship on curriculum design and teacher preparation, I have argued for more flexible and context-responsive approaches
to education. Particularly in moments of disruption, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the global crisis demonstrated that learning is not confined to classrooms; it is adaptive and deeply influenced by context.

However, the most significant lesson from this period was not just that learning can move, but that teachers must be prepared to move with
Yet, many systems, including Nigeria’s, have largely returned to traditional models, missing an opportunity for deeper transformation.

The consequences of this are increasingly visible.
In displacement settings, for example, access to schooling is often irregular, and teaching takes place under conditions of uncertainty, limited resources, digital support systems, and shifting learner populations. In correctional facilities, education must operate within strict institutional controls, restricted movement, and limited teaching infrastructure. These are environments that demand a fundamentally different kind of preparation. Despite growing recognition of the role of education in rehabilitation, the system remains underdeveloped. Even where programs exist, they are constrained by limited funding, shortages of trained instructors, and institutional restrictions that shape how teaching can occur.

Globally, efforts toward Sustainable Development Goal 4 emphasize inclusive and equitable quality education for all. But inclusion cannot be achieved if teacher preparation remains tied to a single model of schooling. These spaces demand a different kind of educator, one who is not only knowledgeable in subject content but also adaptable, context-aware, and prepared to teach under constraint.

Yet, most teachers are never prepared for these environments. Preservice teachers are still largely prepared for conventional classrooms, with teaching practice concentrated in formal school settings, and so exposure to diverse and complex learning environments remains minimal.

Hence, the result is a growing disconnect between where teachers are prepared to teach and where learning is actually taking place.
This gap raises urgent Policy questions. How can education be sustained in displacement settings or achieve its rehabilitation goals without a prepared teaching workforce trained for its unique demands? And how can national education priorities be achieved when teacher preparation does not reflect current realities?

Other countries are confronting similar challenges, but even there, the gaps remain. In the United States, for example, efforts to expand access to education, particularly in correctional settings through initiatives such as the expansion of Pell Grant access, and in broader community-based learning environments, have created new opportunities for learners. However, persistent staffing shortages and high turnover continue to undermine program effectiveness.

This highlights a broader global lesson: expanding access to education without strengthening teacher preparation creates systemic strain.

At the same time, these developments reflect a wider shift in how education is understood globally.
Increasingly, policy and higher education conversations are moving beyond traditional classrooms to recognise non-formal, community-based, and alternative learning environments as central to educational access.Nigeria must not be left behind in this shift.

If we are serious about building a responsive and future-oriented education system, then teacher education must expand – both in imagination and in structure. This means preparing teachers not only for formal institutions, but also strengthening field experiences beyond formal classrooms, and aligning training with the realities of teaching in contexts shaped by disruption, mobility, and institutional constraint. More importantly, it requires us to rethink the assumptions that have long defined education. Because what we choose to prioritize in teacher preparation ultimately determines whose knowledge is valued and which learners are served.

The future of education will not be secured by maintaining existing systems, but by deliberately redesigning them to reflect how and where learning actually takes place.
And that rethinking must begin with those we prepare to teach.