The Association of Private Educators in Nigeria (APEN) is charting a new technological path for private education with a plan to develop its own contextualised Artificial Intelligence (AI) model that will reflect Nigeria’s culture, curriculum and classroom realities.
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The association said the move became necessary because most existing AI tools in use in schools are trained on foreign datasets that often produce content irrelevant to Nigerian learners.
The disclosure was made at a media briefing held at Greensprings School, Anthony, Lagos, ahead of APEN’s 16th yearly conference scheduled for November 2 and 3, at The Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Themed, “Human First: Leading with Purpose in the Age of AI,” the two-day summit will bring together school proprietors, administrators, educators, parents and international knowledge partners drawn from 14 states and parts of East Africa to interrogate generative technology and establish enforceable benchmarks for human-centred adoption in the classroom.

Speaking at the briefing, the Chairman of the Planning Committee, Mrs Bolanle Adewole, stressed that while artificial intelligence offers transformative efficiency, foreign datasets often deliver pedagogical content that is disconnected from local educational realities.

She warned that heavy reliance on foreign-trained public models leaves Nigerian institutions vulnerable to cultural displacement, making a domestic technological roadmap imperative.

“AI has not come to kill education; on the contrary, it has come to enhance and support it by promoting innovation, sustainability and efficiency,” Adewole said.

“However, it cannot be an AI free-for-all. What is significant for our schools is developing AI that is not merely drawn from external web caches, but models into which we can input our own context. As an association, APEN is looking to build its own contextualised AI engine in the near future so that our tools reflect local realities rather than giving outputs only relevant to Europe or other parts of the world,” she said.

Adewole explained that current generic models frequently return illustrations and examples that are alien to Nigerian learners, such as references to winter or contexts rooted in Western curricula, underscoring the need for a localised alternative.

Reinforcing the position, a member of the APEN Board of Trustees, Mrs Olufunke Fowler-Amba, cautioned that generic global algorithms risk alienating Nigerian learners from their identity and immediate environment.

“Globally, conversations and recent research indicate that mainstream AI architectures were not built with minorities or our specific educational space in mind,” Fowler-Amba said.

“Beyond the conference, APEN provides a unified voice to bridge the policy gap between the government and private education. Our priority is ensuring that our children preserve an identity useful to their immediate ecosystem while acquiring global competencies for the modern marketplace,” she added.

She said the conference would help educators develop a common approach to deploying AI in ways that preserve Nigeria’s educational needs, cultural identity and ethical values, while also ensuring that learners acquire skills relevant to both their immediate environment and the future labour market.

Addressing practical classroom applications, the Chairperson of the APEN Board of Trustees, Mrs Lai Koiki, said technology must be deployed to relieve teacher burnout rather than fuel anxiety about professional obsolescence.

“Schools’ quality is fundamentally determined by the quality of the educators. AI is an extraordinary asset to reduce workload, alleviate administrative burnout and streamline lesson planning and student assessment.

By exposing our educators to structured skills, we ensure they can compete with peers anywhere in the world, while remaining firmly at the centre of classroom mentorship,” she said.

Koiki noted the international dimension of the conference, pointing to APEN’s ongoing institutional relationships with bodies such as the Council of British International Schools, (COBIS) and confirmed participation from countries such as Kenya and Uganda, which continues to position Lagos as the primary regional hub for the convention.

She said APEN was established to support school founders in managing their institutions effectively, recruiting suitable teachers and providing continuous professional development, and that the association would sustain initiatives that strengthen private education.

On institutional sustainability, founding Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, Dr Olufemi Ogunsanya, said private school leadership requires structured governance and sustained policy engagement with statutory authorities.

“AI has come to stay, but school proprietors must know how to lead institutional change, employ the right educators and train them continuously,” Ogunsanya said.

She said AI is useful not only to students but also to teachers, school founders and other stakeholders, describing it as a supportive tool that helps to reduce overload, structure notes and grade students’ work, and connects educators with peers globally.

Ogunsanya added that over the years, the APEN conference has attracted international interest, with education stakeholders from other countries indicating interest to participate.

Organisers confirmed that the conference will feature specialised breakout tracks tailored for school owners, educational leaders, classroom teachers and parents, to ensure that stakeholders across the educational value chain leave with implementable governance templates from November 4.

They said the summit would interrogate the global debate around whether AI should come first or human first, affirming that while AI has come to stay, human connection remains at the heart of education.

Already, they disclosed that delegate interest has exceeded initial projections. The conference, originally benchmarked for 350 participants, has already recorded over 300 confirmed registrations weeks ahead of the summit, with expectations that overall turnout will surpass the initial target and inch toward the venue’s 600-delegate full capacity.