Education, science and technology: A triadic process for promoting socio-economic skills in Nigeria

Abstract

The present day Nigerian socio-economic plights such as unemployment, poverty and terrorism among others, could be traced to failure in education system of 19th and 20th centuries. Education system of these aforementioned centuries in Nigeria failed to give priority to self-reliance of the citizens. Consequently, the involvement of unemployed graduates in social catastrophes such as armed robberies, oil pipeline vandalisms, and kidnappings, to mention but a few are index of awareness that Nigerian education system needs urgent rehabilitation. In this regard that the paper examined various channels through which Education, Science and Technology(EST) could be amalgamated and put end to the present quandaries of the citizens using promotion of Socio-economic Skills as panacea. Interviews and multidisciplinary approaches were used simultaneously to collect data needed for the study. It was discovered that the best way to eradicate social vices from the Nigerian society is to promote self-reliance among her citizens. It was also discovered that the amalgamation of education, science and technology under a single frame-work increases its potency to provide sustainable remedy to self-reliance problematic and socio-economic imbalance among Nigerian ethnic groups. Based on these discoveries, the paper recommended that education, science and technology institutions in Nigeria should be adequately funded for better efficiency and the workers motivated into effectiveness. Educational administrators and teachers should be encouraged to adapt the curriculum contents to daily lives and needs of the people. This could be achieved by paying brilliant attentions to practical applications of knowledge to the needs of the people in the world of work, most especially during teaching-learning processes.

Keywords: SAP, modernization theory, unemployment, self-reliance, change agenda policy