By Abstract
Researchers agree that one of the educational outcomes is economic self-reliance. This functionalist view points to the inextricable nexus between education and poverty reduction in human societies. This link appears to be among the rationales behind the tremendous increase in educational institutions in Nigeria. Yet, as educational institutions multiply, the rate of poverty has unabatedly increased. This predicates on the apathy of successive government towards education sector; its poor funding and management of the sector. Based on these realities, this study assesses the educational qualities that can lead to poverty reduction and the extent education has reduced poverty among the larger Nigerian population. The study employs two research questions and two null hypotheses. Sequel to this, a twenty (20) item questionnaire was developed and administered to twenty (20) respondents, comprising eight (8) males and seven (10) females educationists drawn from twelve (12) public universities in Nigeria. Mean scores and standard deviation were as well used to analyze the data collected while the null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance using the t-test statistics. The results show that though education can lead to poverty reduction, it has not significantly reduced mass poverty in Nigeria due to poor funding, poor teacher instruction, poor payment of teachers, inadequate training of teachers, poor motivation of teachers and students, poor school infrastructure and educational facilities, poor supervision of instructions and lack of parental co-operation. The study therefore concludes that government adequate funding and positive management will truly enhance the quality of education and foster human creative thinking that engenders job creation, economic self-reliance and poverty reduction.
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