Broadcasting
Nigeria – a Nation in Need of Accurate Education Statistics
By: Peter Oluka,
Education data typically involves data compiled from schools on graduation rates, drop-out rates, test score averages, and the most vital – external examination performances.
Often, education data is used to measure the success of a State, Region, Institutions or Individuals and benchmark them against others to improve your own work, products, or processes.
Nowadays, most States publish annual report ‘detailing’ education data meant to hold schools accountable, but why are the students’ success rates at examinations not improving?
It simply means there’s a problem. The information presented in most of these annual reports or scorecards are not always reliable. And the fault lies in the way the data is sourced, compiled and presented.
What exactly goes wrong? How does data become inaccurate? And where can students, parents, schools, researchers, businesses and the government get accurate data about schools’ performances with regards to learning and examinations in Nigeria?
Missing Data
I can boldly say that the ‘missing data’ is at the ‘vault’ of the 71-year-old West African Examinations Council (WAEC) established in 1952 to be a world-class examining body, adding value to the educational goals of its stakeholders. How?
Yes, many reports churn out of researches or academic exercises lack sufficient and accurate data. In many cases, data was not available on demographics like gender, ethnicity, income level, or disabilities. On top of that, most reports can point to the exact key performance indicators.
Takeaway > Many challenges in the educational sector will remain unsolved without access to accurate data. Data!
Let’s break it down: Increase in infrastructural decay, limited resources including personnel, and/or adequate funding in the education sector are traceable to lack of accurate, adequate and real-time access to data for planning and decision-making.
The UN recently released a damning report that only 15 percent of Nigerians have access to electricity, while UNESCO states that only 24 percent receive secondary education or higher.
What statistics like these throw to our faces are the reasons an overwhelming number of Nigerian children lack access a basic education, even in a 21st Century world.
Therefore, a data-driven approach can help address problems such as the lack of infrastructure by using local statistics to identify areas where progress can be made.
For corporate organisations, sometimes it takes just one individual to come up with an innovative new approach that gives your organisation the competitive edge, but more often than not, it requires the collaboration of various different teams and the combination of lots of different data sources.
In today’s fast-paced and artificial intelligence (AI) driven world, most executives agree data-driven operations across lines of business is key to a winning strategy.
Illustrating that point is the 85% increased investment in digital capabilities and 77% increased investment in IT, as reported in the 2022 Gartner CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey. Giving your employees the ability to access and make sense of their data, whether they sit within technical teams or not, is therefore crucial to your success.
Your data needs to be democratised across the business, although this is often harder than it would seem.
According to New Vantage Partners’ Data and AI Leadership Executive Survey 2022, only 27% of organisations have managed to nail this, with another 19% struggling to establish a data culture.
Through 2025, 80% of organisations seeking to scale digital business will fail because they don’t take a modern approach to data and analytics governance, as stated by Gartner’s State of Data and Analytics Governance.
Unfortunately, modernising tech stacks and migrating to the cloud are not enough to put the right data in the right hands of everyone across the business. Organisations must modernise their governance practices to fully uphold their efforts.
For instance, if an Education Technology (EdTech) startup can find out why there aren’t enough schools in a certain area, they can use census data to determine how many students live there.
Upon completion of that phase, they move further to collaborate with government officials to work out what must be done — maybe constructing more schools or finding ways to transport students who currently walk long distances to school each day.
How about researchers? It is a no-brainer that ‘poor quality data can have serious effects on later analysis. Data containing errors of commission or omission have the potential of throwing off analytical calculations, which may then lead to incorrect conclusions’.
Real-Time Access to Data is the Solution
The best way to describe this is to see education data as an apparatus that receives and uses inputs to help run the educational process, producing outputs that tangible and/or measurable. Data use deepens critical thinking and decision-making by parents, teachers, students, educational institutions, researchers, donor agencies/NGOs, businesses and the government.
Thus, collecting and analyzing data to determine why children are out of school will allow you to take actionable steps to reduce these numbers. For example, if you find that many young girls drop out after their first menstruation cycle (usually around age 12 or 13), you can focus resources on providing private sanitation facilities for girls at their schools.
This will help eliminate hygiene-related reasons for young girls dropping out of school and ensure they stay engaged with education.
By collecting data about why children aren’t enrolled in school, it is possible to make informed decisions about how best to address your target population’s needs.
You can also use data to measure how effective interventions have been in reducing dropout rates. This information can be used by decision-makers to create programs tailored specifically for your region and local culture.
In addition to focusing on specific groups based on location and demographics, you can collect data from each student who has dropped out of school.
So, innovative solutions informed by high-quality data and evidence can help improve school performance and keep children in school, especially those who are most at risk of dropping out.
Currently, 1 in 6 Nigerian students is not enrolled or attends irregularly, but with proper attention to data, concerned stakeholder can make sure that not one more Nigerian child has to grow up without an education. This will require political will, effective planning, and coordination between federal and state government officials as well as local communities.
Well, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), is taking the bull by the horn through the introduction of an artificial intelligence-driven Education Statistics (EduStat) platform. Find out about more about the potentials of EduStat in my next piece…
About the writer:
Peter Oluka is the Editor of TechEconomy, a Lagos-based media startup. You can follow Peter on Twitter @PeterOlukai.
Broadcasting
CANAL+ Partners Samsung to Pre-Load DStv Stream on New Samsung TVs In Nigeria, Other African Countries
Following an expanded partnership between CANAL+ and Samsung Electronics, the DStv Stream app will now be pre-installed on new Samsung Smart TVs sold in Nigeria and 17 other African countries.
The agreement covers English and Portuguese-speaking African markets, including Nigeria, Kenya, Angola, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. It marks the first pre-installation rollout of a MultiChoice Group streaming application on Samsung Smart TVs.
The development comes after the completion of the combination between CANAL+ and MultiChoice Group. It also extends an existing relationship between both companies that already spans 40 markets across Europe, French-speaking Africa, and Asia.
Through the integration, Samsung customers can now access DStv Stream directly from the television home screen. The app provides access to premium sports and entertainment content, including coverage of the FIFA World Cup 2026, English Premier League football, domestic and international rugby, and local and international television programming.
With the introduction of this connected television which kicked off on June 1, televisions can now connect to the internet, allowing users to stream content directly without requiring a separate decoder or satellite dish. The pre-installation of the app removes the need for users to search for and download it themselves, reducing friction and improving content discoverability.
The rollout is one of the first major distribution initiatives following the integration of CANAL+ and MultiChoice. The combined group has identified streaming growth and enhanced digital distribution as key priorities across Africa, where connected television adoption continues to increase.
David Mignot, CEO of CANAL+ Africa and CEO of MultiChoice Group, affirmed, “We are delighted to extend our longstanding partnership with Samsung across new English and Portuguese-speaking African countries. It marks a significant milestone in the synergies created by the combination of CANAL+ and MultiChoice Group.
“Mignot added, “As viewing habits continue to evolve rapidly across the continent, strengthening the accessibility and discoverability of our content offer on connected devices is key. By expanding the availability of our applications on Samsung Smart TVs across key African markets, we are making it even easier for millions of MultiChoice Group’s subscribers to seamlessly access the content that define the uniqueness of the CANAL+ and MultiChoice Group experience.”
This extended partnership is expected to strengthen Samsung’s position as a key distribution partner for streaming services globally while providing CANAL+ and MultiChoice with a broader route to market as competition intensifies among international and regional streaming platforms across Africa.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed an appeal filed by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) challenging a Federal High Court judgment that restrained the commission from imposing fines on broadcast stations.
Delivering judgment, Justice Jane Esienanwan Inyang held that the appeal was fundamentally defective and therefore incompetent.
The appeal stemmed from a Jan. 17, 2024 judgment delivered by Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia of the Federal High Court, Abuja, which barred the NBC from enforcing N5 million fines imposed on several broadcast stations in 2022.
The sanctions had been issued over allegations that the stations aired documentaries on banditry and insecurity considered by the commission to be capable of undermining national security.
The affected broadcasters included Multichoice Nigeria Limited, owners of DStv, TelCom Satellite Limited, Trust TV Network Limited and NTA StarTimes Limited.
The suit was instituted by Media Rights Agenda (MRA), which challenged the legality of the fines imposed by the commission.
In her ruling, Justice Inyang pointed to a discrepancy in the appeal documents, noting that the respondent before the Federal High Court was listed as the “National Broadcasting Commission,” while the notice of appeal identified the appellant as the “Nigerian Broadcasting Commission.”
According to the court, the inconsistency was substantial enough to deprive it of the jurisdiction required to entertain the appeal.
“The notice of appeal is the foundation of an appeal and a condition precedent to the exercise of appellate jurisdiction by this court,” the judge held.
Consequently, the appeal was struck out without consideration of the substantive issues raised by the commission.
The ruling represents another setback for the NBC in its efforts to defend its authority to sanction broadcast organisations through administrative fines.
In April 2026, the Court of Appeal similarly dismissed a separate appeal by the commission against another judgment that restricted its powers to impose fines on broadcasters.
Earlier, in May 2023, the Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that the NBC lacked the judicial authority to impose penalties on media organisations without recourse to the courts.
The controversy over the commission’s sanctioning powers dates back to March 2019 when the NBC imposed N500,000 fines on 45 broadcast stations for alleged violations of the Nigerian Broadcasting Code during the general elections.
At the time, the then Director-General of the commission, Is’haq Kawu, said the sanctions were imposed for ethical breaches and violations of broadcasting regulations.
Legal analysts say the latest judgment reinforces previous court decisions limiting the commission’s authority to impose fines on broadcasters without judicial intervention.
Nigeria has launched FreeTV, a broadcasting platform, designed to provide households across the country with free access to digital broadcasting, improved picture quality, and a wide range of local and international content without subscription fees.
The announcement was made in a post on the official X handle of the Presidency, describing the initiative as part of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, which prioritises inclusion, expanded access to opportunities, job creation, support for local enterprise and the use of technology to improve daily life for citizens.
According to the statement, FreeTV forms part of Nigeria’s Digital Switch-Over (DSO) programme and is intended to ensure that no Nigerian is excluded as the country transitions fully from analogue to digital broadcasting.
The platform will offer access to more than 100 national, regional and state-owned channels, covering news, sports, films, music, children’s programming, educational content, as well as dedicated Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo language channels.
The Presidency noted that the service will be accessible through satellite, terrestrial transmission and a dedicated FreeTV mobile application, enabling coverage for users in urban centres, rural communities and previously underserved areas that were not fully captured in earlier DSO pilot phases.
It also clarified that Nigerians will not need to purchase new television sets to access the service. Existing televisions can work with compatible DVB-T2 or DVB-S2 decoders, while users with already compatible free-to-air devices may not require additional equipment.
Speaking ahead of the launch, Charles Ebuebu, director-general, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), said the initiative reflects the administration’s broader digital inclusion strategy.
“FreeTV speaks directly to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s vision of Renewed Hope towards expanding access, creating opportunity and ensuring that every Nigerian, regardless of location or income, can benefit from the digital economy. With FreeTV, families across Nigeria can enjoy quality digital television without a monthly subscription, while our local content producers, technicians and young creatives gain new platforms and new jobs,” he said.
The statement added that the platform will also strengthen Nigeria’s creative and broadcast industry through regional production hubs in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kano and Benin, creating employment opportunities for content creators, editors, camera operators, sound engineers and other media professionals.
The Presidency further disclosed that the final analogue switch-off remains scheduled for December 31, 2028, urging Nigerians to begin preparations by confirming decoder compatibility and downloading the FreeTV mobile application ahead of rollout.
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