Applied Science and Innovative Research ISSN 2474-4972 (Print) ISSN 2474-4980 (Online) Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir 60 Original Paper Impact of Decadence of Education on the National Security and Sustainable Governance in Nigeria Emmanuel Adelekan Ojewunmi1 1 Department of Politics and International Relations, Lead City University, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria Received: August 8, 2022 Accepted: August 21, 2022 Online Published: August 31, 2022 doi:10.22158/asir.v6n3p60 URL: http://doi.org/10.22158/asir.v6n3p60 Abstract This paper investigates the causes for the decadence and continuous decline of education and its impact on the national security and sustainable governance in Nigeria. The paper with the use of descriptive design along with the secondary data collection, analyses the various negative ways the continuous and incessant closure of the public educational institutions in Nigeria can have on the national security and sustainable democratic governance in Nigeria state. The finding of this paper is that the government has not done enough to arrest the situation, and that the country is therefore heading toward total disintegration. The paper also believes that the inadequate budgeting for the educational sector has contributed greatly to the inefficiency of Nigeria’s educational institutions at all levels. The paper therefore recommends that the governments should revisit their budget provisions by voting more funds for this important sector and as a matter of urgency, the government at the central levels should speedily resolve the ongoing strike of public university staff, while those closed institutions since February 2022 be opened within a shortest period in order to return the students back to their schools. Keywords Education, National Security, Sustainable Governance, Nigeria 1. Introduction Nigeria is a country that covers an area of 570,000 kilometers and it is located on the west coast of Africa. As at 2021, Nigeria is believed to have a population of over two hundred million people as well as over two hundred different ethnic groups and languages within its land borders. It is also believed that the rates of unemployment and crime are getting higher everyday based on the bad governance and political leadership. Therefore, the Nigerian state is believed to be a difficult place to live in because of the insecurity and insurgency. Likewise, the incessant closure of schools has been linked to the bad budgeting and national insecurity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 61 Published by SCHOLINK INC. It is on this premise that this paper investigates various factors responsible for the decadence in Nigeria educational sector and the negative effects they have on the nation’s national security and sustainable democratic governance. The paper’s perspectives is that national security does not only mean protection of lives and properties of the people, there is more to it. The contemporary national security has moved beyond military variables to embrace and encompass social, economic, cultural, political, environmental and technological variables. Likewise, this paper is of the view that Nigeria’s national security and sustainable governance are at risk because of the continuous decline and decadence in educational sector and the country is heading towards total breakdown of law and order because of the high rate at which its youths are engaging themselves in crimes of various gravities. This paper therefore recommends that the government should take decisive measures to avert the impending national crisis through urgent resolve of the public universities staff crisis with the government. The paper also recommends that voters in Nigeria should also desist from taking bribe before voting. They should vote based on the candidates political agenda and moral standing. Conceptual Framework There are three basic concepts in this paper that needs our further discussion to enable the readers to grasp the context in which they are used. The three key concepts are: educational system, national security and sustainable governance. Educational System In concept of education like religion, is a civilization and socializing agent. Likewise, education encompasses every facet of human endeavor. The concept of education in reality is an issue related to the fundamental human right of citizens of any given state. Meanwhile, according to Isiramen (2010, 110), education involves an organized system of learning with the objective of changing human behavior through the imparting of new values, new knowledge and new ideas. Further to this, education can be defined to be mean an excursion of the mind in which the teacher and the taught are active co-participants (Adelekan 2008:80). Also, education targets making the teacher and the taught better human beings, it is a sort of training that seeks to produce better societies (Alana, 2016, 10). In other words, whatever information that is imparted to a person on the learning process is capable of influencing everything about him in the future. Etymologically, the word ‘education’ is derived from the Latin word “educatio’ which means “a breeding up, a rearing”. Historically, education began in prehistory, as adults trained the young in the knowledge and skills deemed necessary in their society. In preliterate societies, this was achieved orally and through imitation, story-telling passed knowledge, values and skills from one generation to the next. According to Assmanns (2003), as cultures began to extend their knowledge beyond skills that could be readily learned through imitation. Meanwhile formal educational institutions existed in Egypt at the time of the Middle Kingdom. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 62 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Basically therefore, educational system can be defined as the process of facilitating learning or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, morals, beliefs, and habits. Educational methods include teaching, training, storytelling, discussion and directed research. Educational system frequently takes place under the guidance of educators; learners can also educate themselves. Education can take place in formal or informal settings, and any experience that has a formative effective on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational. The methodology of teaching is called pedagogy. Meanwhile, formal education is commonly grouped formally into the following educational stages: preschool or kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and then college, university, or apprenticeship. Furthermore, formal education occurs in a structural environment whose explicit purpose is teaching students. Usually, formal education takes place in a school environment with classrooms of multiple students learning together with a trained certified teacher of the subject. Most school systems are designed around a set of values or ideas that govern all educational choices in that system. Such choices include curriculum organizational models, design of the physical learning spaces (for example: classrooms), student-teacher interactions, methods of assessment, class size, educational activities, and more (Enhancing Education, 2003). Likewise, on the other hand, informal learning occurs in a variety of places such as home, work, and through daily interactions and shared relationships among members of society. For many learners, this includes language acquisition, a peer or expert, to guide the learner. If learners have a personal interest on what they are informally being taught, learners tend to expand their existing knowledge and conceive new ideas and the topic being learned (Rogoff and others 2016, 356-401). While informal learning often takes place outside educational establishments and does not follow a specified curriculum. It can also occur within educational settings and even during formal learning situation. Educators can structure their lessons to directly utilize their students’ informal learning skills within the education setting (Rogoff and Others 2016: 356-401). Another form of learning is “self-directed learning”. This term is also known as “auto didacticism” which anyone may become at nearly any point in one’s life. Notable autodidacts include Abraham Lincoln (Former U.S. President), Srinivasa Ramanujan (Mathematician) and many others. Another form of learning is Evidence based Education. This involves the use of well-designed scientific studies to determine which education methods work best. ● Evidence-based learning methods such as spaced repetition can increase rate of learning (Smolen, 2016). ● Open learning and electric technology: many large university institutions are now opting for offering free or almost free full courses, through open education such as Harvard, MIT and Berkeley. Open education has been called the biggest change in the way people learn since the printing press. Despite favorable studies on effectiveness, many people may till desire to choose traditional campus education for social and cultural reasons. But many open www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 63 Published by SCHOLINK INC. universities are working to have the ability to offer students standardized testing and traditional degrees and credentials (Swalin, 2012). ● The online learning method which is now becoming an acceptable international standard is another notable method. The method allows the students to stay outside their institutional environments. The learning takes place through the use of internal software such as Zoom, Google classroom, and many other online facilities. National Security Security, according to conventional opinion means protecting the lives and properties of people from various forms of threat. By implication, ‘National Security’ describes or implies the concern usually of governments and their agencies with the stability and safety of a given state. (Otubanjo, 1989, 44). Abolurin (2011:2) also defines security as the protection of assets including people against damage, injury or loss from internal or external causes. Albert (2003, 53-69) sees security as the survival of the state and the protection of individuals and groups within the state. Thus, we can infer from these definitions that the sovereignty of a nation state may be determined by their ability to safeguard citizens and her resources against any attack be it from within or outside the state territory. State, according to another perspective means the state of being safe and protected. It is the provision for a sense of protection against loss, damage or harm of both non-living and living or man (value resources). In other words, it is the assurance that something of value will not be taken away from the rightful owner. Furthermore, Kabbah (2006, 3) conceives national security as the preservation of independence and sovereignty of a nation state. It also means safety or freedom from anxiety or danger in such a manner that one’s future can be certain and guaranteed. Meanwhile, according to Obasanjo (1999, 1-3), national security is the aggregate of the security interest of all individuals, communities, ethnic groups and the entire political entity. Obasanjo further argues that the preservation of the safety of Nigerians at home and abroad and elimination of corruption, pursuit of development, progress, growth and the improvement of the welfare and quality of life of every citizen of Nigeria constitute our national security concern. If all these perspectives are critically considered, they all belong to a school of thought that sees national security as the responsibility of the state in ensuring the preservation of the safety of its citizens at home and abroad, and also as preservation of the integrity and assets of the country. The assets of the country include physical assets like infrastructure and economic and intangible assets like national prestige, values, power and authority. In essence, this school believes that national security is the totality of a nation’s efforts to protect and preserve the society, its institutions and the wellbeing of its citizens. It connotes deliberate measures to identify and ward off perceived, potential and real threats to the nation state. This is what is known as old conception or the traditional concept of national security. In other words, the traditional concept focused on building up defense and security manpower and amassing weapon systems so that once a threat situation arose, the state could meet the challenge. The whole energy and resources of the state were concentrated on military manpower and armament (Kazir, 2010:3). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 64 Published by SCHOLINK INC. The new concept of national security is known as contemporary concept. The concept has moved beyond military variables to embrace and encompass social, economic, cultural, political, environmental and even technological variables. This became clear to scholars and researchers in the field that for a nation to be really secured, security must be seen from a holistic or comprehensive view point. In this sense, bad press, bad laws, food scarcity, bad government, lack of transparency and public accountability, unemployment, hunger, poverty, etc. became critical in the security calculus of a nation, as threats (Kazir, 2010, 5). In the view of McMamara (1968, 149), “Any society that seeks to achieve adequate military security against the background of acute food shortage, population explosion, low level of productivity, and per capita income low technological development, inadequate and inefficient public utilities and chronic problem of unemployment has a false sense of security” McNamara (1968, 149) further states that “In a modernizing society, security means development. Security is not military hardware, though it may involve it, security is not traditional military activity, though it may encompass it. Security is development and without development there can be no security. A developing nation that does not in fact develop, simply cannot remain secure for the intractable reason that its own citizenry cannot shed its human nature”. Meanwhile, McNamara warns that coercive force alone cannot solve the problem of insecurity, especially in a society where poverty is endemic. Another scholar in this field of study, Buzan (1991, 6) suggests five dimensions of the new concept of national security. These dimensions are: Military security, political security, economic security, societal security, environmental security. Buzan explains and links these five dimensions in this way. Military security concerns the two-level interplay of the armed offensive and defensive capabilities of the state. Political security concerns the organizational stability of state, system of government, and the ideologies that gave them legitimacy. Economic security concerns access to the resources, finance and markets necessary to sustain acceptable levels of welfare and state power. Societal security concerns the sustainability within acceptable conditional patterns of language, culture, and religion and national identity and custom. Environmental security concerns the maintenance of the local and the planetary biosphere as the essential support system on which other human enterprises depend (Buzan, 1991:70). Meanwhile, Nwolise (2009: 264-269) extends the list to fifteen by introducing physical, psychological, spiritual, technological, national image, territorial, legal, treasury, people’s power, and global securities. Based on these aforementioned, the people must not only be secured from external attacks but also from the devastating consequences internal upheavals, unemployment, hunger, starvation, diseases, ignorance, homelessness, environmental degradation and pollution cum socio-economic injustices. It is when these are in place that Nigeria’s national security and governance can be sustained and there will be a peaceful co-existence of all citizens irrespective of their status, culture, language, religion and professions. Sustainable Governance To start with, governance is viewed as the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels. It comprises mechanisms, processes and institutions through www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 65 Published by SCHOLINK INC. which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences (Ibak 2012, 232). Likewise, Fakanbi, Raheem and Raji (2012, 338) see governance as the exercise of power through a country’s economic, social and political institutions in which institutions represent the organizations rules and routines, formal laws, and informal norms that together shape the intention of public policy makers, overseers and providers of public services. In other words, governance in general parlance refers to the administration of a state. According to Noor (2008), governance relates to the mechanism, structure and process that guides political and socio-economic relationship of a country. Governance also has been generally defined as the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social development. Governance can be used in several contexts such as corporate governance, international governance, national governance and local governance (Word Bank, 1992). Furthermore, there are two factors that promote sustainable governance. The two new elements of governance according to the stage are electoral legitimacy and development oriented leadership. By electoral legitimacy, it means that those in power must be democratically elected without electoral manipulation. Leaders are to rule through the support of the people who elected them, they are not to force themselves into the corridor of power. In their election, the rules of electoral processes must be fully followed and any fraudulent practice observed. Likewise, oriented leadership means that the leader should be committed to the development of the entire society over which he or she rules, ensuring the formulation and implementation of policies aimed at enhancing the quality of life of all the citizens. This is essentially a transformation task that is, moving a country from a lower level of development to a higher without poverty, marked by significant improvements in respect of the basic needs of education, health, food and housing (Adamolekum, 2011). The reason for the success stories in countries like China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan was that they were all committed to development with clarity of vision and goals among other factors. These countries consistently implemented growth oriented and market friendly policies with some differences in the policy options and in their sequencing. Another factor given that is of great benefit to this article readers was the great importance these countries attached to the mobilization and utilization of human resources, with particular attention to investments in education (Adamolekun, 2011). Meanwhile, the present development imbroglio in Nigeria since independence has been traced by many observers to the poor leadership among many other major factors. That is why a renowned novelist says: “THE TROUBLE OF Nigeria is simple and squarely a failure of leadership (Adamolekun, 2011). Likewise, the term “Sustainable” refers to the ability to be able to maintain a procedure at a certain rate or level. Also, it is the ability to continue a system over a period of time causing little or no damage to the political, economic, social and environmental matters of the society and therefore to be able to continue for a long time without disruption. Therefore, sustainable governance involves generating policy outcomes that maintain or improve the quality of life for present and future generation without placing unfair burden on future generations. Also, sustainable governance integrates the principle of system www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 66 Published by SCHOLINK INC. thinking and appreciate the complexity of decision making environment. Moreover, for any governance to be sustainable, it must be a government that preserves the future. Every government must govern in such a manner that they not only protect the political, economic, social and environmental interests of the present but also protect the political, economic, social and environmental interest of the future generation. In addition, not only cognizance of present economic, political, social and environmental needs should the governments keep in mind and protect, but also be mindful of such needs for the future generations. Reasons for the Continuous Educational Decadence in Nigeria The factors that contributed and still contributing to the educational decadence in Nigeria did not start now, they are things that have started for decades without any decisive decisions. First, basically, the problem of declining quality of educational system in Nigeria can be traced mainly to administrative deficiency and bad governance. There are evidences of nonchalant attitudes and poor and insufficient funding for the educational sector in Nigeria. To illustrate this fact, this paper’s findings on the continuous striking of the Nigerian public universities in Nigeria are the indecisiveness on how to reach agreement with the Academic Staff University Union (ASUU), Non Academic Staff Union (NASU), and the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) by the Federal Government. There is also bad funding of the Universities in Nigeria. The budget allocations from the past years have been judged to be inadequate. Second, the central system of paying the universities staff salary has been greatly criticized to be prone to fraudulent practices which enable some of the government officials who are in charge of the salaries payment to feed fat on the staff. Likewise, the Federal government has also failed to implement agreements earlier made with the striking Academic Staff by the previous regime. Third, another major reason that cause educational decline in Nigeria is the insufficient number of schools for the applicants. School should not be seen only in respect to a building, where teaching takes place. School in the real sense includes teachers, teaching materials, and all those other things that make an educational system to perform and be effective. All these conditions require money. Nigeria’s economic position is so precarious despite so many aids that the country received from the foreigners, as at August 2022, the country does not have enough funds to build enough schools and to provide the necessary educational facilities for the mass children who are still seeking for admission in Nigeria’s societies. Furthermore, in Nigeria, many adults and parents have little or no understanding of the importance of education. The economic status of many have prevented them to enroll their children in schools. Therefore, many young children are forced to do menial jobs, and to struggle on their own for survival from an early age, leaving no time for them to educate themselves, and to live meaningful lives. In addition, many parents believed that raising children is for the purpose of helping them in their own professions because economically, they are not rich enough to channel their resources for the educational pursuit of their children. The fact is that many families do not have enough money even for the basic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 67 Published by SCHOLINK INC. needs of the members, talk less of sending them to schools, which is why children in such families have to work from an early age to assist their parents. Likewise, some rural communities in Nigeria are located in areas where they lack government infrastructure such as good roads, electricity, good drinkable water, hospitals and many others that can aid establishment of schools for the young children. Some children have to trek several kilometers daily before they can attend schools. Many teachers used to work out their posting away from some rural places because of bad roads and government neglect of their schools. All these in no small way are great contributors to the educational decadence in Nigeria and eventually breakdown of sustainable governance because there is a proverb among the Nigerian Yoruba people that says: “Omo ti a ko ko, ni yo gbe ile ti a ko ta”, meaning an untrained child will be the one to sell the house that was built; by extension, it means an uneducated child will throw away the family heritage in the future. Similarly, according to UNICEF, there is lack of qualified teachers in Nigeria’s schools especially in the northern region of the country. Also, there is inadequate teaching materials, and poor sanitation are some of the reasons why children do not receive quality education. Even when they do go to school, children in such conditions fail to acquire applicable and quality knowledge, sometimes even basic knowledge. In addition, the falling standard in educational system in Nigeria could also be linked also to the lost glories of traditional education which inculcates among other things the very important values of hard-work, diligence, integrity, and high productivity. When these are lacking in any production system, education inclusive, the results are often devastating leading especially to poor quality output and wastage which in themselves undermine capacity building and sustainable development. According to Duze (2011, 1-12), a survey of the opinions of 5,507 stakeholders that was carried out to determine whether educational standards were actually falling in Nigeria and at what level was most grievous. It was found that standards have fallen at all levels of education, with the tertiary level being most hit, followed by secondary, and least, primary level. Three major reasons found were poor funding of education, poor implementation of educational policies and programs and poor attitude to school-work. Moreover, the recent get rich quick syndrome of the contemporary young people in Nigeria is another major setback to the educational standards in Nigeria. This syndrome has contributed to the increasing rate of crimes in Nigeria, as evidences show that many youths of today are engaging themselves in many illegal activities such as armed robbery, rituals, internet frauds, kidnapping and many others to get rich, thereby making them to consider education as less importance. Furthermore, the high rate of insecurity in Nigeria as a result of the banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, rituals has also contributed to the decline in education in Nigeria. For example, in Nigeria’s Federal Capital, schools were forced to close down because of the threat of the insurgents who recently sent signals to them to evade some of the communities and the seat of power in the Federal Capital, Abuja, of Nigeria in July 2022. Likewise, many schools have been close down perceptually as a result of insecurity in many communities in the northern region of Nigeria especially in Borno, Zamfara and Kaduna states. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 68 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Finally, there is also the factor of religious sentiments that is affecting the educational standards in Nigeria. Till the recent, there are still some Islamic fundamentalists who are still against the western education in Nigeria. This is also one of the reasons for the terrorism in Nigeria. Also, early forced marriage for the young female children in the northern region is contributing to factors why the education in Nigeria is declining. Many secondary school students in the north are found to have been married and this always make it difficult for them to concentrate in their classes, to be punctual to the school and to attend classes regularly. Meanwhile, any teacher who decides to punish them will be dealt with. This factor has led to high level of indiscipline in many of the Nigeria institutions especially at the secondary and tertiary levels. The Consequences of Educational Decadence on the National Security and Sustainable Governance in Nigeria The continuous education decline has a lot of negative consequences on Nigeria’s national security and sustainable governance in no small measure. These consequences can impact individual life and that of the society as a whole. These consequences range from health-related reasons, social, and economic reasons, each of them generating serious consequence. The longer a person or a community is cut off from education, the more severe, long term and irreversible the effects become. Some of these negative effects that can be identified with the Nigerian educational sector on her national security and sustainable democratic governance are as follows: First, it could be noted that the continuous closure of the public universities in Nigeria has led many of these students to seek for alternate jobs to keep them busy. Why some have now engaged themselves in various illegalities such as prostitution, armed robbery, internet frauds, ritual, kidnapping. Also many of these youths are the available manpower that the terrorists are using to bring them into the insurgency. This is giving a great threat to the nation’s national security and sustainable democratic governance. If the situation is not urgently curbed and addressed, the continuous existence of Nigeria will be jeopardized in no small measure. In addition to this, incessant public university closure in Nigeria has led to premature death of many students. For example, a good number of students recently died while travelling from one location to another in search of job vacancies. Also, in Ogbomoso, a female student of Ladoke Akintola University was kidnapped and killed in a hotel where she was working in early August 2022. Similar to that was the death of a 200 level student of the department of history who was killed while working in a factory in Ibadan in the year 2020. Second, the rate of unemployment is high in Nigeria and this is tightly linked to poverty. People who lack education, or who only finished primary school often work poorly paid jobs, or struggle to find any job whatsoever. Simply put, good jobs are reserved for qualified employees, and qualifications are primarily acquired through education. In today’s age of all-present digitalization where knowledge quickly becomes outdated, and traditional jobs are slowly disappearing, education becomes even more important, representing the key factor that decides whether a person will be able to adapt to changes and find a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 69 Published by SCHOLINK INC. suitable job, or will become unemployed (Allison Academy). Third, because of the incessant closure of the public universities, along with the insufficient educational equipment in the public schools, private educational institutions in all levels are having free days, and prospering. School fees in all these schools are being increased on yearly basis. Therefore, educational opportunities are gradually being taken away from the children of the common and average people in Nigeria. This is because the exorbitant fees being charged in many private schools are unaffordable by many average parents in Nigeria, thereby forcing these children to become irrelevant in the developmental system in Nigeria. Fourth, another consequence of educational decadence is poor health. There is a strong synergy between lack of education and poor health and hygiene. Some of the basic lessons we learn in primary school are related to taking care of one’s own psychophysical health. The importance of hand washing, secular health, and necessity of regular physical activity – all this knowledge is something that stays with a person all their life, and is acquired at school (Allison Academy). Fifth, poor economy is another great negative effect of educational decline in Nigeria. The fact is that countries with high rate of illiteracy will eventually have slow development and are prone to national insecurity and governance. Estimates prove that this trend will continue and become even stronger in the 21st century, when due to digitalization and the changes it brings, a country’s ability to successfully adapt to the changed circumstances will directly depend on their educated population. In addition, education decline will eventually contribute to the impossibility of (adequate) participation in political and social life of the Nigeria. This is because without a comprehensive education in both sciences and humanities, a person will lack the knowledge and tools that enable them to make intelligent and meaningful political decisions. Candidates to vote for in the elections, which ideals to support, who and what to trust, all these are things one must decide about with care and commitment. It is education that enables open dialogue, constructive exchange of opinions, and joint search for the best solution for society as a whole. Therefore proper education helps the individual not to fail prey to political marketing, but to base their decisions on their own thoughts and views. Also, politics is about social relations and acquisition of power. All those who are in politics are there to seek for power to rule over others. Therefore, if citizens lack proper education, the political system will be controlled by nonentities. Then, when this happens, there will be high rate of financial misappropriation and the end result will be bad governance and threat to the national security. This is exactly what is being operated in Nigeria. Bad economy and high rate of illiteracy have contributed to election of wrong people into the political positions in Nigeria, all these can are traceable to education’s decline. Furthermore, uneducated people struggle to fit in social situations, and often remain marginalized. The lack of resources generated by education prevents them from participating in numerous social activities in a productive and comprehensive way, in contrast to educated people who engage in the same activities without difficulty (Allison Academy). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 70 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Likewise, education’s decline has also contributed to the gender imbalance in Nigeria. Women who receive poorer education than their male counterparts are often in an adverse position. Quality education gives women independence, higher salaries and the opportunity to express their views on various social issues. Education means independence and the ability to make informed decisions on one’s life, for both men and women. Similarly, there is also the problem of lower salary for the less educated people in Nigeria. The fact is that people who lack qualifications, even when they find a job, will always have a significantly lower salary than their more educated counterparts. Less pay and less valued jobs are reserved for unqualified workers, and often such positions are in danger of being automated, which creates additional uncertainty regarding salaries and jobs for people with a lower level of education. Meanwhile, all those in this category are more prone to crime than those with better paid jobs and they stand as a great threat to the national security and sustainable governance in Nigeria. Moreover, the IMS Fiscal Monitor research showed that education can even affect a person’s life expectancy. Specifically, in developed economies, the gap between men with higher education and those with secondary or primary education ranges between four and fourteen years, and is even larger in some countries. But Nigeria has been rated as one of the lowest life expectancy because of the poor economy, high rate of illiteracy, inadequate health facilities and bad governance. Therefore, education has a lot to contribute to an individual’s life expectancy. In other words, education’s decline has contributed to the Nigerian’s shorter life expectancy which is one of the lowest in the world. 2. Recommendations For Nigerian educational sector to be transformed and to become more effective and efficient, the governments in Nigeria at all levels should as a matter of fact, jack up their annual budget allocations to their educational institutions and ministries. When enough funds is available for the use of public institutions, there will be a rapid improvement in the quality of graduates that are being produced annually. Likewise, the government should do their possible best to monitor how the funds that are being released to these schools and their boards are being made use of to avoid financial misappropriation. In the recent, leadership in the Nigerian higher institutions are more interested in pumping funds into projects that have no direct bearing to the academic benefits of the students like school gates, exotic vehicles for officials, school official logos etc. The governments should therefore put measures in place that will always assess the importance of these projects before embarking on them. Furthermore, social infrastructures like hospitals, roads, electricity supply should be provided for the rural dwellers to encourage their children to be in school. Also, teachers serving in these communities should be given certain incentives that can boast their morale in order to work in these communities. Likewise, to increase the school enrollments in the rural communities, government should form mobilization groups that will be visiting them to enlighten the parents on the importance of education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 71 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Meanwhile, the Federal Government in Nigeria should as a matter of urgency find a lasting solution to the ongoing strike that have started since February, 2022 so as to bring the striking staff back to work by urgently opening the closed public universities. In addition, the outstanding salaries of the universities staff should be paid without further delay, and the payment procedure should be discontinued while an acceptable one be agreed upon by both parties. Similarly, the political class in Nigeria should determine to rule with godliness and integrity. Extravagant spending should be avoided in order to bring sanity into the Nigeria political system which has been rotten. Governments at all levels should be prudent in spending public funds and show integrity and be transparent in carrying out their official assignments. Similarly, the people in Nigeria should improve their political awareness. They should not vote for candidates that have no good standing, but to vote for those who really have the interest of people in mind. The voters should not take bribe before voting, but to critically examine each candidate and his political agenda before deciding on whom to vote for. Moreover, the governments in Nigeria should bridge the gap between the rich and the average parents through provision of more schools at affordable fees to improve on intake into the public schools. Likewise, the governments should do their best to encourage more females in the public school so as to reduce the level of gender imbalance and early marriage in Nigeria. 3. Conclusion This paper has proved that Nigerian educational sector has for long been witnessing decline because of bad governance, increasing high level of immorality, incessant closure of the public institutions, and high rate of unemployment among the working class. Meanwhile, it should be noted that open access to education is not just an individual right, but a great opportunity for society as a whole as well. The more people have access to the knowledge and skills provided by authentic education, the greater the chances of overall progress. It is therefore necessary to ensure access to education for everyone. In order to do that, the link between the causes of the lack of education and its negative effects must be broken. Efforts concentrated on overcoming the causes will simultaneously nullify the effects, and the solution is quality education accessible to all (Allison Academy, 2022). This paper will therefore conclude that the governments at all levels should as a matter of fact increase their budget allocations to the educational sector. The transformation of Nigerian educational institutions is the responsibility of all citizens and governments and each should show more commitments to the improvement of the Nigerian public institutions in order to bring sanity to them. References “Enhancing Education” Retrieved from http://www.futurelearncome on March 10, 2021. Abolurin, A. (2011). Nigeria’s National Security: Issues and challenges. Ibadan, John Archers. http://www.futurelearncome/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir Applied Science and Innovative Research Vol. 6, No. 3, 2022 72 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Adamolekun, L. (Eds.). (2011). Public Administration in Africa. 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