1. Lead Now Foundation
www.lnfoundation.org
c/o OIC International · 1500 Walnut Street, Ste. 1304
Philadelphia, PA 19102
www.lnfoundation.org
c/o OIC International · 1500 Walnut Street, Ste. 1304
Philadelphia, PA 19102
No 103 · Obafemi Awolowo Way · Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria
THE MISSION
Lead Now
Foundation’s
mission is to
improve the
quality of
teaching and
learning in
Nigeria’s
public schools.
To do this, Lead Now
Labs makes available
relevant 21st century
curriculum to primary
and junior secondary
schools. Lead Now
Labs are designed for
teachers and students
to access new learning
systems and media
platforms that were
formerly unavailable
to them. Our math,
science & literacy
curriculum, along with
hands-on training for
school leaders, infuses
Nigeria’s national
curriculum with rele-
vant content and
Our Impact
Lead Now Labs promotes school self-efficacy
in order for our program to achieve sustainabil-
ity, scale and impact. Within 5 years, Lead
Now Labs expects to have programs in at least
30 schools nationwide impacting 90 teachers
and up to 5,000 students. The Trainer of
Trainer model is designed to reduce depend-
ence on Lead Now’s support over time,
enabling the curriculum and training to reach
more schools and become institutionalized. In
the end, Lead Now Labs expects to become a
key lever in the creation and the implementa-
tion of a national curriculum that prepares
learners to compete globally. Lead Now’s also
hopes to impact students’ ability to creatively
expand & elevate the quality and sustainabil-
ity of entrepreneurship ventures, businesses,
services and beyond. This means that innova-
tion, skill proficiency and applied knowledge
will become the currencies with which to
secure and create jobs that cater to Nigeria’s
21st century needs. Lead Now Labs will equip
public school students to feel and actually
become fully capable of addressing their coun-
try’s most sophisticated social sector, business
and socioeconomic challenges, such devising
strategies to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS
to developing a vibrant, socially responsible
private sector.
Our Leadership
Lead Now Foundation’s international board
members are respected educators, social
sector advocates and businessmen & women
that include: Dr. Gordian Ndubizu, Drexel
University Professor and Distinguished
Research Fellow; Yinka Odeleye, Vice Presi-
dent of Corporate and Investment Banking,
Citibank Nigeria; Esohe Iyamu, Teach First
alumna and oil & gas consultant; Tutu
Egbetokun, NYS Senior Social Work
Manager; Odion Ahmed, Nigerian public
school teacher; Richard Turner, New Jersey
State Senior Auditor; and Founder, Efe
Osagie. Lead Now Foundation’s partners
to date include Segun Olujobi, Chair-
man of Leap Africa; Dr. Chidi Onyia,
Org Consult; and Vice Chancellor of the
University of Nigeria, Nsukka Campus,
Dr. Chinedu Nebo.
About the Founder
Efe Osagie is the founder of Lead Now
Foundation and a Teach For America
alumna. As a teacher, Efe became her
school’s 7th grade Lead Teacher to support
teachers and students to achieve significant
growth on state exams in English Language
Arts. Elected to the Board of Education in
Willingboro, New Jersey, Efe is again
working to increase student academic
achievement for her District’s 4,500
students. Efe has worked for health, educa-
tion, and municipal entities in government
relations, fundraising and development,
and curriculum development. Efe graduated
with a B.A. from Rutgers University with
departmental honors in Journalism and a
Henry Rutgers Thesis Scholar distinction.
She completed her master’s degree in
Governmental Administration at
The University of Pennsylvania.
Lead Now Foundation
(Continued inside)

2. The Problem
One in every 5 Africans is Nigerian. As the largest African pro-
ducer and exporter of crude oil, Nigeria has the largest econ-
omy in Sub-Saharan Africa next to South Africa, so its
socioeconomic and educational crises reverberate throughout
the region impacting both Nigeria and its neighbors. Still,
Nigeria remains one of the world’s poorest nations because the
nation hasn’t figured out how to effectively build up human
capacity.To effectively change this reality, a massive overhaul
must happen in Nigeria’s public education system to produce
new young leaders who are talented thinkers and innovative
producers. However, current student academic performance
data are hardly encouraging: only 49% of Common Entrance
Exam takers (rising junior secondary/ middle school students)
met the cut-off for entry last year, implying that the majority
of primary schools failed to prepare students for junior
secondary school. Additionally, World Bank sample data from
each Nigerian state revealed that students in urban areas and
in private schools only performed marginally better than their
peers in rural areas in math and literacy with mean scores
of 37% and 35%, respectively. This demonstrates that a
child’s socioeconomic status is just a small part of the issue.
The quality of teaching and learning is the major issue.
Our Curriculum
Beyond a user-friendly curriculum that focuses
on math, sciences & literacy, Lead Now Labs
trains teachers and principals to facilitate learn-
ing with a few tools that include a Lead Now
Labs teaching coach, a laptop computer and
benchmarking tools. Lead Now Labs works
with principals /headmasters to identify and
train strong, inquisitive teachers to run labs in
their classrooms. Through dvds, modeling and
other techniques, teachers learn how to employ
a number of research-based activities for their
students: writing and reading workshops,
group and project-based assignments, inquiry-
based assignments and learning centers. With
minimal infrastructural capacity, laptops allow
teachers to access electronic curriculum and
play instructional videos in small centers, utilize
PowerPoint presentations and post feedback
on lessons to the Lead Now Labs Portal.
Teachers can also continue to develop profes-
sionally through blogging and conferencing
with other Lead Now Lab teachers after class.
Like teachers, principals receive a laptop and
training on a rubric to monitor and develop
Lead Now Lab teachers. Finally, students
learn to measure their own performance on a
rubric and receive regular benchmarks to en-
sure that they are learning and applying that
knowledge regularly.
Our Distinctives
Nigeria’s current national curricu-
lum enables a standard of teaching
and learning that parents, educators,
government officials and philanthro-
pists all agree is obsolete. In fact, a
number of the country’s private
schools operate under the same
philosophy of teaching that was es-
tablished in the country’s colonial
period and utilize the same teaching
strategies and equally under-trained
teachers as their public school coun-
terparts. Lead Now Labs combines
the methodologies, activities, and
physical and technological mediums
that are scarcely available in many of
Nigeria’s public schools. Lead Now
Labs also ensures that classroom
activities are directly connected to
learning goals that promote increas-
ingly challenging levels of thinking
at each grade level to produce
critical thinkers and independent
learners. Beyond technology and
contextualized classroom activities,
rigor and research-based practices
are some of the crucial elements that
set Lead Now Labs apart from other
programs.
globally recognized
best practices to
make that content
come alive. With
Lead Now Labs,
more public schools
will produce students
who are critical
thinkers and innova-
tive producers for a
21st century African
economy.
Our Solution
Lead Now Foundation’s mission is to improve
the quality of teaching and learning in
Nigeria’s public schools. Our 3-strand
approach to transforming schools from the
inside out addresses what students are learn-
ing, how they are learning it and who is teach-
ing them. Lead Now Labs makes available
relevant 21st century curriculum to primary
through secondary schools, focusing on
constructivist methods and activities that are
designed for teachers and students to access
new learning systems and media platforms.
Our math, science & literacy curriculum,
along with hands-on training for school
leaders, infuses Nigeria’s national curriculum
with relevant content and globally recognized
best practices to make that content come
alive. With Lead Now Labs, more public
schools will produce students who are critical
thinkers and innovative producers for a 21st
century African economy.