Time to End the Silence: The Case for Transparency in Nigeria’s EdTech Funding Landscape
EdTech
History shows that development without accountability breeds fragile institutions and the recent unrest in Nigeria’s EdTech sector spearheaded by Izesan Limited and backed by Dumena—signals more than a disagreement, it marks a critical reckoning within the ecosystem.
These two organizations have become essential to Nigeria’s educational future with Izesan! working to digitize indigenous languages and Dumena providing robotics and coding education to underserved communities, yet both have been consistently excluded from the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship, administered by Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB), for the past three years.
While CcHUB has maintained a public stance of transparency, critics point to years of silence, unexplained decisions, and a recent gesture of limited finalist feedback as indicators of deeper opacity rather than accountability.
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In response to these concerns, a call for immediate reform is growing louder, including demands for the full publication of selection methodologies, retrospective evaluations of the impact made by previously funded startups, and an independent investigation into the exclusion of grassroots innovators with proven track records. Advocates argue that national development must be grounded in transparency and that any effort to empower Africa’s next generation must begin with honesty and openness.
