1.1 Introduction
Education, as a key component of human capital formation is recognized as being vital in increasing the productive capacity of people. Education, especially at the higher level, contributes directly to economic growth by making individual workers more productive and leading to the creation of knowledge, ideas, and technological innovation (Todaro, 2007). The Nigerian economy has been plagued by several economic and social problems with mass poverty being at the top of the list. This is quite ironic for a country that is endowed with vast natural and human resources. In the quest to finding plausible solutions to the problems faced by the country, studies have shown education as a leading instrument for promoting economic growth.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of the Study
Education is an age long phenomenon in all societies although it may take various forms from one society to another. In Nigeria two forms of education were in existence before the advent of colonialism. They were indigenous education and Islamic education. Traditional education as was practiced in the southern and some parts of the middle belt Nigeria, consisted essentially of general but informal training in character, norms, agriculture, fishing intellectual and other ways of life as approved by society. Islamic education on the other hand was practiced mainly in Northern part of Nigeria.
Olaniyan and Okemakinde (2008) carried out a research on the implications of educational development on human capital. They concluded that Nigeria is confronted by most of the problems that could limit the capacity of expansion in education to stimulate growth and development such as under-employment, low absorptive capacity, and shortage of professionals, regional imbalances and brain-drain. The persistence of many of these problems in spite of the various policy formulations and responses points to the need for a more focused, responsive, functional and qualitative educational system.
Ararat (2007) analyses the role and impact of education on economic growth in the two largest economies of the former Soviet Bloc, namely, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The study attempts to estimate the significance of different educational levels, including secondary and tertiary education, for initiating substantial economic growth that now takes place in the two countries. This study estimates the model of endogenous economic growth and the system of linear and log-linear equations that account for different time lags in the possible impact of higher education on economic growth. The model estimation shows that there is no significant impact of educational attainment on economic growth. The results from the system equations indicate that an increase in access of population to higher education brings positive results for the per capita GDP growth in the long term.
According to Haller (2012), economic growth is the process of increasing the sizes of national economies, the macro-economic indications, especially the GDP per capita, in an ascendant but not necessarily linear direction, with positive effects on the economic-social sector, while development shows us how growth impacts on the society by increasing the standard of life. To him economic growth can be positive, zero or negative. Positive economic growth is recorded when the annual average rhythms of the macro-indicators are higher than the average rhythms of growth of the population. When the annual average rhythms of growth of the macro- economic indicators, particularly GDP, are equal to those of the population growth, we can speak of zero economic growth. Negative economic growth appears when the rhythms of population growth are higher than those of the macro-economic indicators.
Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Impact of Education in the Development of the Nigerian Economy.
1.3 Statement of the Problem
Investigation revealed that the educational sector in Nigeria is plagued by many problems. This is attributed to the attention given to education by the Nigerian governments (both past and present) is relatively low. Even many years after independence, it is stunning to know that the adult illiteracy rate is still at 74% (Ibidapo-Obe, 2007) and the gross enrollment rate is also low. The minimum amount to be spent by a country on education as stated by the United Nations (UN) is 26% of the country’s annual budget. Ironically, according to the data by Herbert (2002) from 1977-1998, the total education budget represented an average of 9.7% of total government expenditures, while its percentage share of the GDP from 1991-2009 has maintained a value of 0.85%. Its highest value was 5.11 % in 1981 and its lowest was 0.85% in 1991 (UNESCO, 2011).
Looking at the statistics above, it is clear that expenditure on education is still very low. Another pertinent issue in the Nigerian educational sector is that of teacher education. The basic problems reported by surveys carried out in various research in Nigeria have shown the discrepancy between the demand for teachers and the supply for teachers, and that teachers fail to meet the minimum requirement as stated by the National Policy For Education. This is due to lack of incentives, brain-drain and lack of motivation (Ibidapo-Obe, 2007). According to Dike (2002), he noted that the Federal Government reported that the falling standard of education in Nigeria is caused by “acute shortage of qualified teachers in the primary school level.”
It was reported by the same author, that about 23 percent of the over 400,000 teachers employed in the nation’s primary schools do not possess the Teachers’ Grade Two Certificate, even when the Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) is the minimum educational requirement one should possess to teach in the nation’s primary schools. It is no wonder then that Nigerian students do not generally perform well in most (external) public examinations. Almost every year, the Chief Examiners Reports (CER) for the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) highlight the abysmal poor performance of students at the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations.
Added to this poor performance in those public examinations, is the widespread vice of examination malpractice, which is indicative of poor and inadequate preparation for examination. When students have not read widely and thoroughly and have not been well prepared for examinations, the tendency is to turn to short-cuts and sharp practices in order to pass examinations.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to examine the Impact of Education in the Development of the Nigerian Economy. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To ascertain whether education impacts on the development of Nigerian economy significantly.
- To investigate the economy benefit of education in the Nigeria
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- Does education significantly impact on the development of the Nigerian economy?
- Does education increases the economy development of Nigeria?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
Hypothesis One
- H0: Education does not have significantly impact on the development of the Nigerian economy.
- H1: Education has significantly impact on the development of the Nigerian economy.
1.7 Significance of Study
The above mentioned problems constitute the basis for this research work which aims at examining the impact of government expenditure and teachers’ educational qualifications on the educational sector using different methodological approaches emanating from adopted data. The study will be beneficial to the education authorities and administrators, as this will propel reforms and transformation where necessary in the educational sector.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the impact of education in the development of the Nigerian economy.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
Education: The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.
Development: The process of developing or being developed.
Economy: The state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money.
