The Federal Government has introduced a virtual teaching programme to provide pupils in underserved communities with access to qualified teachers, particularly in schools facing shortages of subject instructors.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, explaining that the initiative, called Inspire Live, would deliver interactive lessons remotely to pupils in primary, junior secondary and senior secondary schools.
He said the platform was designed to ensure that pupils would not be denied access to instruction because their schools lacked teachers for particular subjects.
Using Kaura Namoda in Zamfara State as an example, Alausa said pupils in schools without English Language teachers could connect to live lessons online based on a centrally prepared timetable.
“Any school, say you are in Kaura Namoda today and you don’t have an English teacher, you can go online and log on when that teacher will be teaching English. You can log on to it in an interactive way,” he said.
According to the minister, Inspire Live covers all subjects in the national curriculum, including English Language, Mathematics, Social Studies, Civic Education, Nigerian History, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
He added that pupils could also access recorded lessons to reinforce their understanding or catch up on classes they had missed.
“They will have recorded lessons. You just need to log on, and you get linked to a live teacher. You can also go and do a recorded lecture,” Alausa stated.
To address concerns over the cost of internet access, the minister said the Federal Government had partnered with the Nigerian Communications Commission to provide zero-rated data for students accessing the platform.
He explained that the arrangement would allow pupils to connect to lessons without paying additional data charges.
“We have collaborated with the Nigerian Communications Commission. We have zero-rated data, free data, to log on to the site. You log on free, you get live teachers,” he said.
Beyond the virtual teaching programme, Alausa disclosed that the government was also deploying digital tools to improve teachers’ effectiveness and professional development.
He identified Ignite, a cloud-based platform, as one of the interventions designed to help teachers prepare lesson plans, access curriculum materials and obtain resources for classroom instruction.
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“We are also supporting our teachers. We have Ignite, a cloud-based platform where teachers can go to help them prepare their lesson plans and look at the curriculum,” he said.
The minister further disclosed that the government was implementing a Teacher Preparedness Programme to strengthen the capacity of nearly 50,000 teachers.
“At this moment, we’re running what we call a Teacher Preparedness Programme that we’re paying for almost 50,000 teachers,” he said.
Alausa described the interventions as part of a broader strategy to improve learning outcomes by supporting both teachers and pupils through technology-driven educational programmes.
The initiatives come amid persistent concerns over inadequate teaching personnel and the uneven distribution of teachers across Nigeria’s public schools.
Data from the Federal Ministry of Education’s Digital Nigeria Education Management Information System, obtained in August 2026, showed that 31,827,244 pupils in public schools were being taught by 592,077 teachers, representing a learner-teacher ratio of 53.8 to one.
The figures also showed significant disparities among states, with Kano recording 88 pupils per teacher, Katsina 87.4 and Imo 82.2.