Education and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from Nigeria
Date
2020-11-16
Authors
. Irughe, Roland.I
Edafe, Joel
Eregha, Perekunah.B.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research consortium
Abstract
The nexus between education and growth as an engine for increased economic growth
has continued to attract the attention of economists and policy makers. Experts
observe that education has an impact on society, both at the micro and macro levels.
However, education has not been given its rightful place in the case of Nigeria, as
reflected in the nation’s budgetary allocations. The country is also characterized by
dualism in every form, such as an oil and non-oil sector. This dualism is also reflected
in the contributions to growth, as education impacts the components of growth
differently. It is against this backdrop that this study examined the impact of different
levels of education on different components of growth in Nigeria. Data for the study
were sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria Annual Bulletins and the Nigerian Bureau of
Statistics, as well as from the World Bank for the period 1970–2013. The Fully Modified
Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Dynamic OLS approaches were employed for the
analysis. Education was captured by enrolment rates at different levels of schooling
and completion rate, which revealed that different levels of education have positive
impacts of varying magnitude on each of the components of growth, as well as on
overall growth in Nigeria, but the magnitude of the impact from completion rates
is much higher on overall growth. By implication, since completion rate explains
growth at a higher magnitude than enrolment rates in Nigeria, the government should
endeavour to provide modalities to curtail school dropouts in the education system
as a measure to boost completion rates that will facilitate growth.
Description
Keywords
Non-oil Growth, , Oil Growth, , Fully Modified OLS