Impact Of Corruption On Nigerian Educational Sector: Implications For Sustainable Socio-Economic Development

Abstract

Education all over the world has been regarded as a bed rock for socio-economic development in any country especially the developing ones. However, the present level of deterioration of quality of education in Nigeria has continued to raise the fear of losing this position. The objective of this paper is find out if corruption has contributed to the falling quality of education in Nigeria; to determine if the quality of education in Nigeria is responsible for the teaming unemployable graduates, and to ascertain whether the falling quality of education in Nigeria is a challenge to sustainable socio-economic development. The study adopted social learning theory as its framework of data analysis while quantitative research design which made use of survey method was employed to accomplish the purpose of the study. The data for the study were collected through structured questionnaire items. With a population of four thousand, five hundred and fifteen, four hundred were selected as the sample size through the application of Taro Yamani mathematical formula. Data collected were analyzed using frequency and simple percentage. The three formulated hypotheses were tested using Chi-square. The findings show that corruption is responsible for the poor quality of education in Nigeria, it equally reveals that the poor quality of education in Nigeria is responsible for the high rate of unemployment in the country, and shows further that the poor quality of education in Nigeria is a challenge to sustainable socio-economic development in the country. The paper recommends among other things that government should intensify its fight against corruption in Nigeria and as well declare state of emergency in educational sector till the quality of education is improved