EDUCATION technology firm EduFocal Limited, through its latest expansion to Lagos, Nigeria, is looking to take advantage of emerging teacher training opportunities which have presented themselves in the African country.

Lagos, as one of Nigeria’s largest cities, is deemed a major educational and cultural centre with a growing population now at almost 16 million people.

“The opportunities we are looking at in Africa right now are specifically around teacher training, so our efforts will be focused on creating learning content for teachers while also training them. There is strong demand for this type of service based on the size of the African market when compared to that available locally, hence we are moving in to capitalise on as much as we can. We will pretty much be utilising our same strategies and platforms but in different ways,” CEO of EduFocal Gordon Swaby said while speaking with the Jamaica Observer earlier this week.

Assessment from a recent conference which saw close to 2000 students in attendance reveals some very promising signs for the future prospects of the company.

“That conference was kind of a temperature check for us to see the kind of demand existing there, which in turn has also helped us to build and promote the EduFocal brand on the African continent,” he told the Business Observer, without divulging more.

The expansion, which came as a result of its solid network forged by the on-the-ground presence of its Chief Strategy Officer Dr Anna Bethune, who is based in the African country, has throughout the last year helped the business to establish valuable contracts and partnerships in that market.

With the incorporation of EduFocal Africa Inc in Delaware, USA and EduFocal Nigeria Limited, the local firm wants to double down on short- and medium-term growth opportunities in one of African’s largest markets.

Sharing a rationale for the format of its newest foreign subsidiaries, Swaby said the objective is to allow the entities the opportunity to, over time, be able to raise capital from stock markets outside of Jamaica.

“It’s still early days so we are not really looking at any form of investments right now,” he, however, hastily noted.

EduFocal, which has been channelling its services through two main segments, has, particularly through the LEARN division, been using technology to enrich the learning experience of students, and in recent times began to offer adult learning modules.

Driven by improved first-quarter results the CEO said the company, after securing over $112 million in revenues and $42 million in net profit, was even more aggressive in its growth push.

“The prospects for edtech globally are massive in terms of the expected growth, and this we also expect to reflect for EduFocal as a company and for our shareholders. Following our strong first-quarter performance we are looking at growing even more aggressively than we have done so far, so the prospects for us as a company are therefore very exciting,” Swaby said in closing, while noting that interest in all markets remains very strong, even as the company continues to pace itself to move with the wave of current and emerging opportunities.