ENHANCING EDUCATION DELIVERY THROUGH CONSTRUCTIVIST LEARNING STRATEGY

Abstract

This study investigates why constructivist learning strategies remain marginal in 
Nigerian secondary education despite policy calls for 21st-century competencies. 
Recent reviews show that teacher-centered, certificate-oriented practice still 
dominates classrooms, limiting learners’ critical-thinking, collaboration and 
problem-solving skills. Drawing on a philosophical qualitative method 
conceptual analysis of Deweyan constructivism paired with contemporary 
sociocultural accounts. The paper interrogates the ‘memorisation-for-exams’ 
culture that privileges recall over meaning-making. By re-situating Dewey’s 
experience-based curriculum within today’s skills agenda, the analysis argues that 
constructivist design guided discovery, scaffolding, and learner-generated 
artifacts offers a viable route to embed creativity, metacognition and transferable 
competencies. The methodological stance is philosophical qualitative: tracing 
constructivist concepts from Dewey through recent interpretations, situating them 
beside Nigerian policy texts and classroom observations. This approach does not 
seek statistical generalisation but rather a justified, critical reading of how theory 
illuminates practice. The paper argues that re-orienting Nigerian secondary 
pedagogy toward constructivist strategy is a necessary realignment, not a luxury. 
If learners regularly construct, test, and revise their own understandings, they 
develop the self-reliance and adaptive skill set the knowledge economy requires. 
The proposed shift from absorption to active expression offers a platform for 
students to participate in their own learning and for schools to contribute more 
credibly to national development goals. The sections that follow develop this 
claim through theory, contextual analysis, and pragmatic recommendations. The 
paper concludes that adopting such strategies is not merely pedagogical 
preference but a necessary realignment of Nigerian schooling to the demands of 
a knowledge-based global economy.