Role of Education in National Development

Education is a significant sector in any nation, being a major investment in the human capital development. Education means a form of self-development in shape of learning, knowledge, skills and habits to be conveyed from one generation to the next. Looking back and flipping the pages of history, the importance of education for the economic, social and moral development of any nation can be observed. Henceforth, education is one of the foremost human rights to be given priority and provided to all human beings solely by reason of being human.

The education plays a pivotal role in developing a country in every aspect, be it social, cultural or moral development. Accordingly, the role of education in national development of a country cannot be denied. Education is the platform that manipulates the needed manpower for national development. A developed and educated society is the one that has enough manpower and each person occupies his or her rightful position to revolutionize the way people live. Not only educating a nation with an aim to achieve the political, economic, social, moral and cultural aspirations leads the country towards advancement, but also increases in the individual knowledge and fosters national development. Hence, the leading ideology that without education a nation has no possible solutions to bring advancement and enlightenment within the country.

It is prominent to mention that the sole purpose of education is to train an individual to meet the needs of the society and find an enchanting way to boost up the national development in the best possible ways. Education is the driving force for the national development and well-managed economic growth. There is no doubt in saying that the quality of a nation’s education determines the level of its national development.

The school system, which gathers multi-cultured students together, promotes mutual co-existence among the different-cultured background students. As a result, this remains the only way to promote national unity and peaceful co-existence which will, with no doubt, lead to national development. An educational environment helps people figure out the skills that they direly need to get rid of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and any other so called social problem. Therefore, school at various levels are expected to educate upcoming future leaders and develop the multi-dimensional technical capacities needed for economic growth and development.

The agriculture sector plays an everlasting role to direct the country towards development, be it national level or international level; however, the respective part played by the education in strengthening the national economy for the betterment and prosperity of the nation is worth appreciating. Hence the pivotal role of education to enhance and overcome the hardships in health sector cannot be denied at any case, for an educated nation would make a healthy country, aware of the harmful aspects of diseases and how to overcome them.

The pages of history are full of such inspirational revolutions brought by the positive impacts of education into the lives of people in shape of telephone, blob, aeroplane, computer and mobile phone, and in shape of uncountable other inventions and discoveries. As once Nigeria had witnessed a lot of ills and shortcomings in its education system as it was based on the British educational system, which sadly was unable to pay off.  In 1969, the Curriculum Conference held with an aim to focus on the education system of Nigerian children resulted in an educational revolution in Nigeria which gave birth to the National Policies on Education in 1977, 1981, 1998, and 2004 respectively. The utmost importance attached to education in Nigeria was clearly underscored in the National policy on education (2004).

We are living in an advanced and innovative society. The demand of the era is creativity, integration of knowledge, research and analytical approach of thinking. To prepare the youth and children to confront with the suo moto situation requires analytical and critical thinking which would make them more flexible and innovative to deal with the uncertainties at national and international levels. It is necessary to familiarize the students to the technology and modern methodologies of living for the national development of the country.

Education is the route that takes a nation through the culture of productivity by enabling each and every individual to discover the creative potentials in them that they have been gifted naturally and apply the same improvement of the existing skill and technique of performing specific tasks.  Education also leads the people to the ultimate satisfaction of being useful to the society they live in. Additionally, a good and sufficient funded education system develops in individuals those values which make for good citizenship, such as honesty, selflessness, tolerance, dedication, hard work and personal integrity, identifying that education despite other good impacts gives moral training as well.

From these mentioned above all, it is clear that education has a critical function in national development. Education is no doubt, directly linked with the process of nation building and development. The foundation of every state, however, is the education of its youth. Thus, educating a nation is the only policy a country has to practice jointly.