Annals of the Social Science Academy of Nigeria 1(1) 1992 DOI: 10.36108/ssan/2991.04.0180
EDUCATION AND EARNING IN EDO AND DELTA STATES OF NIGERIA
Ben E. Aigbokhan
ABSTRACT
Education is widely recognised as a major source of economic growth through its effect on productivity. Most developing countries made giant strides in the decades up to the 1970s in terms of creating access to education by committing sizeable funds to the sector. However, since the 1980s, in the face of pressing economic problem, many countries cut back on their investment in education. In the face of declining educational quality and access, there have been calls for increased allocation of financial resources to the sector. This paper examines, as a basis of assessing the justification of allocating more funds to education more specifically but critically, the rationale of the call for return to education. This is done at four levels of classification, namely, by level of educational attainment, by sex, by employment category, and by geographical sector. The results show that return to education is positive and rises with more education, thus justifying the call for more resources. The results also show that there is mixed evidence on return to education by sex in the two states. There are similarly mixed evidence with regard to sector and employment category. However, the fact that some differentiation in return to education by these levels of categorisation exists is suggestive of the existence of dual labour market, albeit a rough indication. There is thus the need for public policies to further integrate the labour market, at least because of the implication for rural-urban migration and for equity.