The Future of Education: A Transition from Formal to Informal Learning Patterns in a Digital Age

Abstract

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the accelerating transition from formal to informal learning patterns in the digital age through the lived experiences of 42 secondary and tertiary educators across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews and maximum-variation sampling, the research captured how educators perceived the collapse of traditional classroom authority and the rise of informal digital ecosystems as the dominant sites of knowledge acquisition. Findings revealed that all 42 participants (100%) described formal education as increasingly “ceremonial”, with students learning “more with ChatGPT” than in scheduled classes. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools (cited by 100%), YouTube (97.6%), and WhatsApp/Telegram groups (92.9%) emerged as the primary drivers that made formal attendance feel obsolete. Educators overwhelmingly acknowledged transformative benefits including extreme personalisation (95.2%), dramatic cost reduction (88.1%), and superior practical relevance, yet simultaneously expressed profound alarm about rampant misinformation (100 %), loss of socialisation and character formation (95.2%), widening digital exclusion (90.5%), credential devaluation (88.1%), and cognitive weakening from AI over-dependence (83.3%). Grounded in an integrated framework of connectivism, heutagogy, and possible selves theory, the study confirmed that digital informal learning had become irreversible and, in many domains, educationally superior. Every participant rejected both a return to purely formal education and unregulated informalisation, instead proposing concrete hybrid models featuring institutional validation of informal portfolios, micro-credentials, blended attendance, teacher retraining as mentors, and massive rural infrastructure investment. The research concluded that Nigeria’s educational future lies in deliberately engineered hybrid ecosystems that preserve human mentorship and equity while embracing technological abundance to offer actionable policy pathways for the larger society.