Our history

In November 1999, while discussing across the breakfast table at Nkisi Palace Hotel, Onitsha, Dr. (Mrs.) R.U.N. Okonkwo (later Professor) and Dr. Romy Okoye (later Professor) — both in town for the meeting of the Governing Council of a College of Education — observed that Nigeria had no professional body for people in Educational Psychology and related disciplines, and that one was needed. After that discussion the matter appeared to have been forgotten.

On 17 April 2000 the two met again at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, to study the proposal Dr. Okoye had prepared for a national society. They resolved to found the Nigerian Society for Educational Psychologists (NISEP) — later renamed the Association of Child and Learning Psychologists (ACLP) — with Dr. Okonkwo acting as President and Dr. Okoye as National Secretary, and to hold a national conference at Nnamdi Azikiwe University in October 2000.

To carry the demands of organising a national conference they invited Dr. M.A. Anagbogu (later Professor), Dr. A.U. Okoye (later Professor) and Dr. P.S.E. Ezeh to join them as the foundation members of the Society. At their subsequent meetings the founders were elected to serve, in acting capacities, in the offices below.

The first conference was held in October 2000 at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. At the Annual General Meeting held during the conference, the officers listed above were confirmed as the first National Officers of the Society. The AGM asked the University to host the conference again in 2001, to consolidate the young Society. This was accepted and done.

In 2023 the Society was registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission. It could not be registered as NISEP, because a society with a similar name had reportedly been registered in 2021, so the name was changed to the Association of Child and Learning Psychologists (ACLP). In October 2025, at its national conference at Bingham University, Karu, Nasarawa State, ACLP marked its silver jubilee in what the Association describes as a glamorous ceremony, and it looks forward to its golden jubilee.