Gbolagade Adekanmbi holds a Bachelor's degree in Adult Education and Language Arts (1985); a Master’s degree in Adult Education, with a specialisation in Industrial Education (1986); and a PhD in Adult Education, with a research focus on Distance Education (1992), all obtained from the University of Ibadan, in Nigeria. From 1987 to 1995, he taught courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels,  in Adult Education, Industrial Education, Community Development and Distance Education, among others, at the University of Ibadan. He later joined the Centre for Continuing Education (CCE), University of Botswana in 1995, where he coordinated the Commonwealth Diploma in Youth in Development Work; the Education component of the Diploma in Primary Education (DPE) programme for upgrading Botswana teachers; the Certificate in Adult Education programme, and the Diploma in Adult Education programme, all run through the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode. In these roles, he coordinated the design and development of ODL course materials, developed some course modules, trained writers, and tutors in ODL methodologies, and taught some of the courses.

As a Kellogg Visiting Scholar at Syracuse University, USA, from February to March 1991, Professor Adekanmbi utilised the resources of the University’s George Arents Research Library to engage in research for his PhD dissertation titled “The Transformation of Correspondence Education to Distance Education in Nigeria, 1927-1987.” In 1992, he was a co-winner of the UNESCO Literacy Mention, based on research submitted to UNESCO and later published by the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE) in Hamburg in 1998 as Literacy, Tradition and Progress: Enrolment and Retention in an African Rural Literacy Programme. From 2008 to 2011, he served as Deputy Director, Academic Programming at the CCE, and from 2009 to 2011, was the Centre’s Acting Director, overseeing the Centre’s academic and outreach programmes. Between 2017 and 2018, Professor Adekanmbi was an Adjunct Professor at Botho University in Gaborone, where he taught on the Master of Education in Higher Education programme, using blended learning. In 2022, he served as a Consultant for the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), in an online Open and Distance Learning (ODL) training programme organised for the Universidade de Pungue staff in Mozambique, under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community Centre for Distance Education (SADC-CDE).

Over the years, Professor Adekanmbi has published widely and made scholarly presentations at international conferences in many countries across the globe. He has over eighty publications to his credit, such as journal articles, book chapters, books, conference proceedings, and monographs. With research interests in Adult Education, Open and Distance Learning (ODL), and Higher Education in sub-Saharan Africa, he has also served as a reviewer for many journals, including the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL). One of his major works ‘The State of Access in Open and Distance Learning in Sub-Saharan Africa’ was published in a book on Open Access by IGI Global in 2021. Professor Adekanmbi has been the Dean of the School of Education, Botswana Open University since 2021, and is currently the University’s Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academic Services.