At a time when Africa is increasingly asserting itself as a hub of innovation, Nigerian software developer and entrepreneur Opebinu Oluwasegun is making headlines with a homegrown solution that is quietly transforming how schools operate across the continent.
His brainchild, SchoolAdminPlus, is a digital school management system that has been adopted by more than 1,000 schools in Nigeria and Ghana, empowering over 70,000 educators and digitising millions of student records.
But what makes Opebinu’s story especially compelling is its humble beginning. When SchoolAdminPlus launched in 2010, it wasn’t a sleek cloud-based platform but a simple, standalone program installed on individual school computers. Opebinu and his small team would pack their laptops, hit the road, and go from school to school across Lagos, meeting principals, teachers, and bursars face-to-face.
“We would gather staff in the computer lab and show them how the software could take them from ledgers and registers to a completely digital workflow,” Opebinu recalls. “Sometimes, they were skeptical. Other times, teachers would literally clap when they saw how fast results could be processed.”
These school-to-school demonstrations often turned into impromptu workshops, with Opebinu personally training staff on the spot. Word of mouth spread quickly one excited principal would call another and soon, the team’s calendar was filled with back-to-back school visits.
Just a year later, long before cloud-based school systems became mainstream in Africa, Opebinu reimagined SchoolAdminPlus as an online platform accessible from anywhere in the world. This bold move future-proofed the system and positioned it years ahead of competitors.
“I saw the daily struggles of teachers and school administrators with outdated manual processes. I wanted to build a solution designed for us, by one of us,” Opebinu explained.
Over time, SchoolAdminPlus evolved from a basic result-processing tool into a comprehensive education management platform. It now handles everything from attendance tracking and fee management to parent communication via SMS and WhatsApp. Unlike many imported systems, it is built specifically for African realities, supporting low-bandwidth environments, WAEC-style grading, and customisation for different school types.
The results have been profound. Teachers save hours of paperwork, bursars keep better track of finances, and parents get real-time updates about their children’s academic progress. In some schools, result processing that once took 10 days can now be done in less than two.
The platform’s success has also crossed borders, finding a home in Ghana where public and private schools alike rely on it to simplify daily operations. For Opebinu, this international traction is proof that African-built technology can compete on the global stage.
“Africa has talent and solutions that the world needs. SchoolAdminPlus proves that we can build sustainable, scalable technology right here on the continent,” he said.
Looking ahead, Opebinu is preparing to take SchoolAdminPlus global, adapting it for international markets while staying true to its African roots.
As Nigeria continues to cement its place in the digital economy, Opebinu Oluwasegun’s journey is a testament to what vision, persistence, and local innovation can achieve, transforming entire sectors and setting new standards for how education is managed around the world.
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