From Foundational Learning to Employability: Raising Education Quality for Productive Employment and Inclusive Growth in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria’s pursuit of inclusive growth faces a structural constraint that macroeconomic
and fiscal policy alone cannot resolve: the deteriorating quality of its education system.
This paper argues that education quality is not a peripheral social concern but a
binding economic variable that directly shapes workforce productivity, the expansion
of formal and decent employment, and the prospects for broad-based poverty
reduction. Drawing on evidence across interconnected themes, the paper documents a
compounding crisis. Learning poverty affects an estimated 70 to 80 percent of children
in low- and middle-income countries, with Nigeria among the most severely affected.
Enrolment expansion under the Universal Basic Education programme has produced
credential inflation rather than skill formation. The education-to-employment pipeline
is structurally misaligned, with unemployment paradoxically highest among postsecondary graduates. Chronic underfunding, teacher quality deficits, and weak industry
and education linkages entrench these failures across all levels of the system. The
paper proposes a suite of reforms anchored in outcomes-based financing, curricula
co-designed with employers, prioritisation of foundational learning, and independent
accountability. Without decisive action, Nigeria’s demographic dividend will remain
deferred and its growth neither productive nor inclusive.