Digital Tutoring, Hybrid Entrepreneurship and Youth Employability in Nigeria: The uLesson Case

This study examines how ICT-enabled digital tutoring platforms may contribute to youth employability and human-capital development in Nigeria, using uLesson as a qualitative archival-documentary case of hybrid entrepreneurship in African EdTech. The study analyses publicly available documents published between 2019 and 2025, including company announcements, founder interviews, investor communications, media reports, policy documents and sector reports. Abductive thematic analysis is guided by entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, digital inclusion, frugal innovation, hybrid organizing and youth employability perspectives. Findings identify five mechanisms: ICT-enabled emergence within educational institutional voids; frugal design for affordability and access; a hybrid commercial-developmental business model; platform-related work and digital-skill pathways; and ecosystem partnerships with investors, telecommunications actors and education stakeholders. The study concludes that archival evidence supports claims about platform activities, design choices and partnerships, but not causal claims about job creation, wages, user labor-market outcomes or national unemployment reduction. The paper’s originality lies in reframing EdTech’s employment relevance as employability pathways rather than measurable unemployment impact, offering an integrated framework for analysing African digital tutoring platforms under institutional constraints.