Imagine a teacher standing before 50 students, trying to explain a difficult science concept. The textbook is dense, classroom resources are limited, and there is little time to prepare something more engaging. The teacher knows a visual demonstration could help students understand the lesson, but creating one takes time, skills and tools that may not be readily available.
Now imagine that same teacher turning the concept into a visual presentation, developing a worksheet or helping students create their own projects using a digital tool.
The difference is not technology for its own sake. It is what technology makes possible for teaching and learning.
For Nigeria, this raises a bigger question: how can digital tools support national education priorities, strengthen teacher capacity and create better learning experiences at scale?
A Global Challenge, a Practical Opportunity
The case for investing in teachers is urgent. UNESCO’s 2024 Global Report on Teachers projected that the world would need 44 million additional primary and secondary teachers by 2030 to achieve universal education. Sub-Saharan Africa alone faces a projected need for 15 million more teachers.
Technology cannot resolve teacher shortages or replace effective teaching. However, thoughtfully integrated digital tools can support educators with resource creation, visual communication, collaboration and professional development.
This is where Canva for Education presents an opportunity. The platform provides eligible primary and secondary school teachers and students with free access to tools for creating presentations, worksheets, infographics, videos and other educational resources.
Its value lies not simply in what teachers can design, but in how those resources can support lesson delivery, encourage student participation and make learning more interactive.
What Africa Is Teaching Us
Across Africa, governments and education partners are increasingly treating digital learning as a system-level priority, rather than simply introducing devices into classrooms.
Benin offers a timely example. In December 2025, the government approved the creation of the Beninese Agency for Distance Learning to coordinate digital education across early childhood and primary, secondary and technical, and higher education. Its mandate includes strengthening digital infrastructure, supporting teachers, developing educational content and expanding equitable access to quality education. Implementation is being approached progressively, beginning with higher education in the 2026–2027 academic year.
The country has also taken practical steps to improve school-level access. In September 2026, UNICEF handed over 628 computing devices and related equipment to support 43 secondary schools across nine departments, alongside education administration offices. The initiative is intended to strengthen digital integration and support the development of additional digital classrooms.
These developments illustrate an important principle: digital education requires infrastructure, institutional coordination, relevant content and teacher capacity. Tools become more valuable when they are integrated into a wider education strategy.
For Nigeria, the lesson is not to replicate another country’s model wholesale, but to identify where practical digital tools and strategic partnerships can support priorities already established by government and education stakeholders.
What Nigeria Stands to Gain
Nigeria’s opportunity is to connect digital education ambitions with the everyday realities of teachers and learners.
For educators, Canva can support the creation of lesson presentations, worksheets, visual explanations and assessments. It can also help teachers build professional portfolios and share resources with colleagues.
For learners, guided use can create opportunities to develop presentations, communicate ideas visually, collaborate on projects and demonstrate understanding through their own work.
For schools, shared resources and peer learning can support more consistent teaching practices, while training partnerships can help educators build confidence in using digital tools.
For government, the opportunity is to explore how accessible creation tools can complement teacher-development initiatives, curriculum implementation and broader digital-skills priorities. Any approach must account for differences in connectivity, device access, infrastructure and teacher readiness.
Building Partnerships Around Education Priorities
Realising this opportunity requires collaboration beyond the classroom.
Federal and state ministries of education can help identify priority areas, connect digital learning initiatives to existing policies and determine where structured engagement may be useful. Teacher-development organisations, including Teach For Nigeria and other education-focused partners, can help surface educators’ needs, facilitate practical training and document experiences from the field.
School leaders and teacher associations can support peer learning and encourage the exchange of teaching resources. Education organisations and technology partners can contribute expertise, training and locally relevant examples.
For Canva, these relationships offer an opportunity to listen, learn and explore how its tools can respond to Nigeria’s education context. For government and implementation partners, engagement can help assess the platform’s relevance, identify gaps in teacher capacity and determine what a responsible adoption pathway might look like.
The starting point should be a shared understanding of the problem—not an assumption that one tool can solve it.
From Awareness to Evidence of Impact
Awareness is only the first step. Meaningful progress requires evidence that teachers can use digital tools confidently, that learners benefit from more engaging learning experiences and that schools have the support to sustain these practices.
This means listening to educators, documenting real classroom applications, identifying barriers and assessing opportunities for training and institutional collaboration. It also means recognising that technology works best when it complements effective teaching, rather than adding another burden to educators.
Canva’s opportunity in Nigeria is to contribute to this wider effort through practical tools, educator engagement and partnerships aligned with local priorities.
When digital tools respond to real education needs, teachers gain more ways to teach, learners gain more ways to create, and institutions gain opportunities to make innovation more sustainable. The next step is to bring these stakeholders together and determine what meaningful adoption can look like for Nigeria.
Stephen Onyekwelu is BusinessDay’s Strategy & Enterprise Delivery Executive, specialising in turning editorial vision into enterprise outcomes. A former Online News Editor and lead of the Go Local initiative (print, podcast & BDTV in partnership with Providus Bank), he blends investigative storytelling with platform strategy, conference design, and cross-functional delivery.
