Stakeholders in the education sector have called for urgent systemic reforms to ensure that neurodiverse learners and children with disabilities are not excluded from quality education in Nigeria.
The stakeholders spoke on Monday at a press conference held at The Learning Place Centre, Lekki, Lagos, ahead of the National Inclusion Conference Nigeria scheduled for May 29 to 30 in Victoria Island, Lagos.
The conference is themed, “Embedding Inclusive Excellence: Supporting Neurodiverse Learners in Every Class.”
Speakers at the event stressed that inclusive education must move beyond policy statements and isolated interventions to become a nationwide educational culture backed by government support, funding, teacher training, and institutional reforms.
President of the International Forum of Inclusion Practitioners, Daniel Sobels, said inclusion should become a national priority because millions of learners were being denied opportunities to flourish due to neurological, social, and economic disadvantages.
He said, “No child should be left behind. We hope this conference will usher in new levels of concentration specifically on inclusion knowledge and inclusion skills.”
Sobels noted that neurodiverse children were often misunderstood and unfairly labelled in conventional school systems.
Neurodiverse learners are children or individuals whose brains process, learn, communicate, or behave differently from what is traditionally considered typical.
They include people with conditions such as dyslexia, autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, and other learning or developmental differences.
Neurodiverse learners often require tailored teaching methods, supportive environments, specialised interventions, and inclusive educational practices to help them thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.
Sharing his personal experience as a neurodiverse learner, he said, “I had a very difficult time, mainly because I was accused of being lazy and not clever.
“I was told, and I also felt, strange and different. I think what I described is quite common to neurodiverse learners. They feel like they can’t.”
He added that inclusion should not remain in isolated schools and centres but become a nationwide educational movement.
“We need to move from individuals doing amazing work to this becoming citywide in Lagos and then nationwide,” he said.
Director of Wholehearted Learning, Sharon Gray, said many Nigerian schools desired inclusive systems but lacked the tools, funding, and specialised personnel needed to implement them effectively.
“The government needs to believe in it and support it through policy making and finances because the skill sets required are different from those in regular classroom settings,” she said.
Gray advocated compulsory inclusion studies in universities and teacher-training institutions to improve awareness and preparedness.
Former National Executive Director of the National Inclusion Conference, Angelina Ikeako, said many children in schools today were merely “school compliant” without receiving meaningful education because adequate support systems were lacking.
“It is easy for us to assume that because children are in school, they are being educated, but for children who are neurodiverse, when you don’t have the accommodations and interventions in place, they are not being well educated,” she said.
According to her, the conference is aimed at capacity building, advocacy, awareness, and systemic reforms.
“We cannot afford to have pockets of good practice. We need systemic change,” Ikeako added.
She called on policymakers, educators, parents, and school leaders to adopt what she described as a “360-degree approach” to inclusive education.
Executive Director of The Learning Place Centre, Bolanle Adewale, described inclusion as a fundamental human right backed by the United Nations and UNESCO.
“We in Nigeria cannot afford to leave out any child because they are a certain way or the other. Every child can learn,” she said.
Adewale explained that inclusion benefits not only neurodiverse learners but all children within the educational system.
“When inclusion thrives, everybody benefits,” she added.
Project Lead of the National Inclusion Conference, Oluwatosin Oladipo, said the attitude of adults around children strongly influenced how neurodiverse learners viewed themselves.
“If you have a child in a class where the teacher thinks they can’t, then it is almost impossible for that child to think themselves that they can,” she said.
Centre Coordinator at TLP Centre, Doyinsola Jawando-Adebomehin, stressed the importance of parental involvement and collaboration among schools, health professionals, and caregivers.
“Parents are the experts of their children,” she said. “Children will do well if they can, and if they can’t, then it is our role to support them.”
Also speaking, Communication Lead at Golden Educational Consultants, Olusola Imoru, said that Nigeria faced a shortage of trained special-needs educators.
Imoru noted that many school owners struggled to recruit skilled tutors capable of supporting neurodiverse learners.
Imoru said universities and government institutions must strengthen teacher education and special needs programmes to address the gap.
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