Education as a tool for cultural regeneration and development in Nigeria

Abstract

The Federal Republic of Nigeria has acknowledged and therefore encapsulated the importance of cultural regeneration to national development when it spelt out in its National Policy on Education (NPE) one of its objectives of education as to develop and promote the Nigerian culture in the context of the world's cultural heritage. Although this objective is well recognized, in practice Nigeria's policy makers and leaders appear to contradict this policy statement by laying too much emphasis on science and engineering disciplines in its institutions of learning at the expense of the humanities with the false hope that cultural development would automatically follow economic and technological development. This paper points out that cultural development is not only central toany meaningful development but that if the Nigerian culture is to properly fit into the world's cultural heritage, then it requires regeneration through education in order to be relevant in today's modern world.