Western education began in Nigeria in 1842 at the primary level. The primary schools were established and owned by the Christian missionaries. These missionary organisations ran and managed the schools according to their own formulated policies and philosophies. The followings are the missionary organizations that were in charge and control of Nigeria education system at that time:
1.The Catholic Mission
2. Chord missionary society,
3. Wesleyan Methodist, and the Catholic.
Secondary level education did not commence until 1859 with the establishment of CMS Grammar school, Lagos. Why it took well over 17 years for the takeoff of secondary level education in the country, after the commencement of primary level education 1842, is still a mystery. A school of taught, however, has it that the missionaries were afraid that secondary education may bring about some critical thinking in people, which may be injurious to the colonial masters interest.
The British colonial government in 1872, began to give financial assistance to the various missionary societies to support education in the country. In 1882, the colonial government took a step to take over the control of education system from the missionary groups by promogating the first Education ordinance, The ordinance classified schools into Government and private schools. The government schools were fully funded by the colonial government while the private schools continued to be funded by their owners, but get little financial aid from the colonial government.
The colonial government,1882 education ordinance did not achieve much as it was cumbersome to implement. because the curriculum, the method, and the medium of instruction were too foreign for a Nigerian child. Therefore, these led to the failure of the ordinance, In 1887, another Education ordinance was promogated.
The 1887 ordinance was better than that of 1882, as it corrected many of the flaws noticed in the 1882 ordinance that made it to fail. As a result of the intervention of the colonial government in the education system of the country through the 1887 ordinance, more foreign teachers were employed, more schools were built and financial encouragements were given to the missions, voluntary agencies and private individuals to establish more schools.
In 1916, Lord Fredrick Lugard- then the Governor General of Nigeria, came up with another ordinance known as 1916 education ordinance, which implementation took effect from 21st of December, 1916. The new ordinance was designed to take care of the whole country since it came into effect after the 1914 amalgamation of the north and south protectorates.
To make the ordinance work all over the country,Lord Lugard, the then Governor general had to meet severally with the northern leaders to convince them that western education will not affect the Islamic tradition and culture which is more paramount to the northerners who had been resisting the introduction of western education either from the colonial government or the missionaries
The first higher education institution in Nigeria, Yaba Higher College, now Yaba college of Technology was established in 1932. Though, the college did not commence studies until 1934.