Digital Learning Delivery in Nigerian Colleges of Education for National Security and Sustainable Development

ABSTRACT Education, security, and development are mutually reinforcing: the quality of a nation's teachers conditions the quality of its education, and the quality of its education conditions its development trajectory and social stability. Colleges of Education (COEs), which train the teachers who staff Nigeria's basic education system, therefore occupy a strategic position in the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal 4 and of national security understood broadly as human security. This paper reviews e-learning delivery in Nigerian COEs for a transformed landscape: the pandemic-forced shift to remote and blended delivery, a substantially revised policy architecture (the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, the National Digital Literacy Framework of 2023, and the Federal Colleges of Education Act of 2023, which confers a dual NCE and degree-awarding mandate on federal COEs), and the mainstreaming of generative artificial intelligence in teaching and teacher preparation. Anchored in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework, and using a narrative review method, the paper reconceptualises e-learning as blended digital learning delivery, reviews current evidence on its benefits and constraints in Nigerian teacher education, examines its contribution to education continuity amid insecurity, and proposes updated strategies for optimising digital delivery in COEs. It concludes that the dual mandate era gives COEs both a stronger reason and a stronger institutional platform to digitalise, provided that infrastructure, staff capability, AI governance, and data protection compliance advance together. Keywords: Digital Learning; Colleges of Education; Teacher Education; Sustainable Development; National Security; Generative Artificial Intelligence.