FolasadeAdefisayo

Educator
Education-policy leader
Transformation expert

Close to four decades in banking, human resources, school leadership, organisational transformation and, for most of that time, education. Four years leading the largest school system in Nigeria.

Read her story Contact

Folasade Adefisayo resting her chin on her hand, looking directly to camera.

Lagos State · 2019–2023

Four years, measured

The scale of the system she led, and what changed across four years.

2.5M: Students in the systemPre-tertiary students across Lagos State, roughly 30% of them in public schools.
80%+: WAEC success rateReached in the state's public schools, up from roughly 39% when she took office.
3×: Rate of learningIncrease in the rate of learning in numeracy and literacy under the EKOEXCEL programme.
$11M+: Private partnershipMobilised from private partners in financial and expertise support for the education sector.
1,200+: Infrastructure projectsUnique school building, renovation and furnishing projects delivered.
28,000: Devices distributedPhones, radios and MP3 players pre-loaded with lessons, issued during the pandemic alongside teaching broadcast by television and radio.
1st: Computer-based testingThe first computer-based test run in pre-tertiary education in Nigeria, reaching an estimated 1.5 million students.

Figures from Education Systems Transformation: The Lagos State Story, her own account of the reform presented at the Brookings Institution. Further reporting under Press & media.

About

A life in education

Forty years across banking, educational leadership and organizational transformation.

Folasade Adefisayo standing with arms folded in a dark jacket against a grey backdrop.

Folasade Omobola Adefisayo is a Nigerian educator and education-policy leader whose career spans banking, human resources, organisational restructuring, international trade and, for the greater part of it, education. She is most widely known for serving as Lagos State's Commissioner for Education from 2019 to 2023 under Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, and for a long association with the Corona Group of Schools, where she rose to Executive Director and Chief Executive of the Corona Schools' Trust Council.

She was born and raised between Lagos and Ibadan, the eldest daughter in a family of five. Her father served as Commissioner for Economic Development and later for Education in Nigeria's former Western Region in the 1970s. She has cited this as the earliest influence on her own path into public service.

Before moving fully into education she worked in banking and human resources, experience she credits for the way she approaches institutional leadership and the transformation of school systems. She served as Director of Corona Secondary School, Agbara, in a voluntary capacity, and in 2011 returned to study, taking postgraduate qualifications in education at the University of Nottingham, with distinctions at both diploma and master's level.

Today she is Principal Consultant and Chief Executive of Leading Learning Limited, the education consultancy she founded in 2014, and a fellow at the Leadership and Strategy Institute of the University of Chicago. She is a founding member of Teach for Nigeria and the founder of Tripod Learning Foundation, a non-profit that puts under-used facilities to work expanding access to quality learning for under-served communities.

She volunteers extensively against the learning crisis in Nigerian schools, working with government bodies and non-profits including the Federal Nigeria Society for the Blind, Junior Achievement Nigeria, the Fate Foundation, the Oando Foundation, Yedi, Volunteer Corps and SWORTE Talks.

Download full profile (PDF)

Education & credentials

SecondaryQueen's SchoolIbadanDistinction
First degreeBSc (Hons)University of IbadanUniversity Scholar
BusinessMBAUniversity of Lagos
TeachingInternational PGCEUniversity of NottinghamDistinction
EducationMA in EducationUniversity of NottinghamDistinction
ExecutiveFellow, Leadership & Strategy InstituteUniversity of Chicago
National honourMerit AwardFederal Republic of Nigeria

Portraits

The current portfolio

The path

Career

From a first career in banking and human resources to the leadership of Nigeria's largest state school system.

Pre-2002

Banking, restructuring, human resources and international trade

The first stretch of a forty-year career, spent outside the classroom. It became the grounding she later brought to running school systems as institutions.

2002–2010

Executive Director and Chief Executive, Corona Schools' Trust Council

Eight years leading one of Nigeria's best-known independent school groups.

2010–2014

Director, Corona Secondary School, Agbara

She directed, in a voluntary capacity, the school she had herself attended, retiring from the Corona Group in 2014 after twelve years of service. The Folasade Adefisayo cash award at Agbara is named after her.

2014

Founded Leading Learning Limited

An education consultancy working on learning outcomes, teacher and leadership training, school set-up and school transformation. Clients range from private and public schools to state governments, NGOs and development partners.

2017

Osogbo Government High School, Osun State

Took on the management of a public secondary school and supported public–private-partnership school-management initiatives.

2019–2023

Honourable Commissioner for Education, Lagos State

Appointed by Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu in August 2019 to lead education for a state of more than twenty million people.

2023–

Back to practice, and to the boardroom

Returned to Leading Learning as CEO and Principal Consultant, alongside board and advisory work across the continent and continued public commentary on Nigerian education policy.

Public service

Commissioner for Education

August 2019 to 2023, under Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu.

Folasade Adefisayo receiving a document from Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu. — With Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu.

Sworn in in August 2019, Adefisayo took charge of education for a state of more than twenty million people, and set out a fifteen-point transformation plan, whose tenth objective was to engage the private sector directly in developing education.

Seven months later, every school in the state closed. What followed was an improvised, statewide distance-learning operation: lessons broadcast on television and radio, some twenty-eight thousand devices pre-loaded with content and distributed, volunteer teachers mobilised over social media, and pupils promoted on continuous assessment where examinations could not be sat.

EKOEXCEL

A large-scale primary-education programme, delivered with NewGlobe, built on teacher training, in-classroom coaching and technology-supported instruction. Reporting indicates pupils learned roughly twice as much in mathematics and three times as much in literacy. Its data-driven methodology was presented at the 2023 Education World Forum.

Assessment, rebuilt

A computer-based-test improvement programme reaching an estimated 1.5 million students after the pandemic, and sustained advocacy for alternative assessment: project work and portfolios alongside examinations.

The school estate

More than 1,200 unique school building, renovation and furnishing projects delivered across the state, carried alongside the teaching reforms rather than in place of them.

Partnership as policy

Public–private partnerships and cross-sector collaboration, including work with agriculture, on the premise that the causes of a learning gap often sit outside the classroom.

Lagos, presented abroad

The state's reforms taken to the British Council, the Brookings Institution's education-systems transformation symposium, and forums in the United Kingdom, the United States, Finland and South Africa.

Recognising the workforce

Programmes honouring teaching and non-teaching staff alike, with a stated commitment to reward hard work and excellence across the education workforce.

Folasade Adefisayo with Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu facing a press pack at a Lagos State Ministry of Education event. — Briefing the press with the Governor, Ministry of Education.

Folasade Adefisayo and Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu cutting a ribbon at a school opening. — Commissioning a school with the Governor.

Folasade Adefisayo working at her desk as Commissioner for Education. — In the office of the Commissioner.

A group photograph of the Lagos State Executive Council. — The Lagos State Executive Council, 2019 to 2023.

“We must have a plan, vision and political skills to use data to formulate policy. Because the private sector will only invest in a policy that is sure to deliver on objectives.”

Vanguard, August 2021

Folasade Adefisayo seated in a wing chair in a dark textured jacket.

Leading Learning Limited

The practice

Founded in 2014, and the work she returned to in 2023. Adefisayo is Principal Consultant and Chief Executive.

Folasade Adefisayo seated in a wing chair, turned slightly from the camera.

Learning outcomes: Diagnosing why pupils are not learning, and designing the instruction, materials and measurement that change it.
Teacher & leadership training: Programmes for classroom teachers, heads of school and system leaders. Teachers, Adefisayo argues, are the most under-invested constituency in Nigerian education.
School set-up & transformation: Standing up new schools, and turning around existing ones, for private operators and state governments alike.
Advisory to government: Policy and delivery support for state governments, NGOs and development partners, informed by four years inside one of them.

Clients and counterparts include private and public schools, state governments, NGOs and development partners.

Boards & affiliations

Where else she serves

Tripod Learning FoundationFounder
Teach for NigeriaFounding Member
Atlantic Hall SchoolChairman of the Board
Oxbridge CollegeChairman of the Board
African Leadership AcademyBoard Member, Johannesburg
Federal Nigeria Society for the BlindBoard Member
Princeton in AfricaAdvisory Board
WIMBIZBoard Member
African Governance Institute for DevelopmentAdvisory Board
EduTimes AfricaEditorial Board

She also volunteers with, and collaborates through Junior Achievement Nigeria · Fate Foundation · Oando Foundation · Yedi · Volunteer Corps · SWORTE Talks.

Recognition

Honours & awards

Transcribed from the citations themselves. Scroll across the years, or select one.

2020

3 citations

Convocation LecturerCaleb University, Imota, LagosSeptember 2020
Honours AwardFlorish-Gate Global Consult, 8th School Executives ForumFebruary 2020
Outstanding Excellent Service AwardYouth Orientation for Development, a UNESCO NGO, for exceptional accomplishments and dedication to the public service20 February 2020

2019

10 citations

Special AwardConcerned Parents & Educators (CPE) Initiative4 December 2019
Outstanding Service AwardStudents' Physiological Association of Nigeria, LASU chapter4 November 2019
Recognition AwardMuchmore Than Just Education International Summit, for notable and impactful contribution to Nigerian education1–2 November 2019
Award of RecognitionMack-Jullinne Industries15 November 2019
Award of MeritNigerian Association of Arts & Social Science Education Students, OAU chapter3 October 2019
Veteran Teachers AwardFor outstanding effort and meritorious commitment to teaching and learning5 October 2019
Award of Leadership ExcellencePresented in recognition of quintessential leadership in public service8 October 2019
Outstanding Intellectual Contributions to EducationElias International School, Lagos28 September 2019
Accelerator AwardJA Nigeria, for partnering to accelerate impact on Nigeria's youth2019
Appreciation AwardCommittee of Wives of Lagos State Officials, as Chairman of Session at the 19th National Women's Conference22 October 2019

Undated

5 citations

Service AwardIncubator Africa, Advisory Board
Award of ExcellenceAssociation of Professional Counsellors in Nigeria, Lagos chapter, for meritorious contributions to the advancement of professional counselling in Lagos State
Certificate of RecognitionProject Make Every Teacher a Leader, Scorpiosis Centre for Leadership Values
University ScholarUniversity of Ibadan
Federal Republic of Nigeria Merit AwardNational merit recognition

Life & times

From the archive

1957 to the present, from her own collection.

Family archiveHer father, who served as Commissioner for Economic Development and later for Education in Nigeria's former Western Region.

c. 1957A family portrait from the year she was born, the eldest daughter in a family of five.

1971–73A studio portrait from her school years.

1976–81Graduating from the University of Ibadan, where she was recognised as a University Scholar.

2006–09During the years she led the Corona Schools' Trust Council.

2011While Director of Corona Secondary School, Agbara.

Her own voice

Writing

Selected writing on Nigerian education, teaching quality, equity and learning.

1 Jan 2019

“We have an education transformation plan in Lagos State that has 15 objectives. The 10th objective is to engage with the private sector in developing education.”
Vanguard, August 2021

“It is important for governments to realize that there is a lot of potential in the private sector committing to support government.”
Vanguard, August 2021

Press & media