Impact Of Population Growth and Poverty on Education in Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the impact of population growth and poverty on education in Nigeria from 1981 to 2023. To achieve the objectives, annual time series data on Human Development Index (HDI), Population Growth Rate and Poverty were collected from secondary sources. The dependent variable was education which was proxy by expected years of schooling. The independent variable – population growth (was disaggregated into rural and urban population growth rate) and poverty rate. The E-views 12 Statistical Software was employed to analyze the data empirically. The Unit root test was adopted to test the stationarity of variables. The Unit root test shows that expected years of schooling (EYS), Urban population growth rate (UPGR), and poverty rate (PVT) variables evaluated are all stationary after first difference I(1) while Rural population growth rate (RPGR) was stationary at level I(0). The result indicated that that the coefficients of UPGR, RPGR and PVT are all negatively signed and statistically significant in the long-run. It therefore means, UPGR and RPGR negatively affect education in Nigeria. The study recommends amongst others that the Nigerian government should introduce policy that will make it compulsory for working age population who had no formal education to enroll in any government training centre across this country to learn a trade. This will help reduce level of unemployment and poverty rate in the society.