When the British arrived to Nigeria, they created missionary schools and taught Nigerians how to read and write. This was how Nigerians were educated up until independence from the UK in 1960. In Nigeria, there is a common belief that education will lead to higher income and is a sure way to escape from poverty and from tedious farm life. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that when political independence was attained, there was rapid expansion of the education sector. From 1950 to 1980 there was rapid expansion in the growth of the education sector (cite this). On the other hand, in the period 1981-2009 there was a rapid decline in the growth of educational sector (cite this). During the period of growth in the education sector the growth was largely due to an increase in access to education in Nigeria. For example, the number of students in primary schools was 626,000 in 1954, this rose to 2,912,619 in 1960. Similarly, the number of post primary school students rose from 161 in 1955 to 912 in 1960. The student population in post primary schools rose from 9,908 in 1947 to 140,401 in 1960 (Ajetomobi). Clearly by the time independence arrived for Nigeria the government decided that it would be very beneficial to increase the access to education. The government provided public funding to these schools most notably missionary schools that had been in existence since the first …show more content…
The return to education that states that people that have higher levels of income will in the long run earn more than someone who has less amounts of education. Ideally to observe returns to education a researcher would analyze an individual who had two different levels of education but this is impossible. Therefore, this paper will use a variety of measures that have been proven to showcase education’s effect on economic development. These measures are government expenditures on education, literacy rates, number of people in various levels of school at times, Gross Domestic Product, Gross Domestic Product per capita, and teacher certification in Nigeria. Although none of these measures on their own provide substantial conclusions on education and its effect on income per capita together they allow for a reasonable conclusion. Data on education before 1960 will not be included for the most part in the data of this paper because Nigeria was owned by the UK before 1960 and the education statistics didn’t match what is currently used for the country. The data found in this paper will come from a variety of reputable sources including other scholastic papers on the study of education and economic development in Nigeria. Most of the statistics from the government will come from the website of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Each year they post their statistics for their country which have