Functional Education: A Panacea to Bad Governance, Insecurity and National Dis-Unity in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria’s national policy on education in recognition of the relevance of education stated that no nation can rise beyond the quality of its educational system. thus, education is seen as a catalyst for socioeconomic and political development of a nation. the success of many nations in tackling major security and development problems such as poverty, unemployment, insecurity, challenges of democracy, inequality among others can be traced to their educational system. one of the developmental problems in Nigeria which served as a catalyst to several other problems is the increasing rate of insecurity and challenges of democracy in Nigeria which marred national unity. it is not surprising that in a decade now, our youths had resorted to terrorism because of large scale democratic imbalanced and porous security. This paper therefore examined  functional education as a panacea to bad governance, insecurity and national dis-unity in Nigeria. The paper started with clarification of the major concepts which include democracy and education, issues and challenges for leadership in Nigerian schools, functional education and national security in Nigeria, education and national unity, as well as contributions of education to national development. The challenges confronting education that had effects on sustainable democracy, peace and unity in Nigeria also formed issues for discussion. This paper has shown that, functional education had made the youths to participate on matter of governance and give them less time to plan evil which caused insecurity in the country and hindered national unity. The paper concluded that functional education is the process through which educational goals and objectives are achieved through collective and collaborative human efforts in suitable environment for sustainable democracy, peace and unity. It was recommended among others that education should be given priority in the nation’s budget. Schools should be equipped with adequate teaching and learning facilities to enhance transfer of adequate knowledge. All these will foster unity, national development and ensure security in Nigeria.