Unemployment and Educational Attainment in Nigeria

The tragedy of jobless growth makes the increasing rate of unemployment among school leavers a cause of grave concern in Nigeria. Based on the human capital theory, this study examines the dependence of unemployment on educational attainment in Nigeria from 1990-2020 using the autoregressive bounds test approach. Data were sourced from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other secondary data sources. The study employed variables such as the primary graduation rate, secondary graduation rate, tertiary graduation rate, government expenditure on education and inflation rate. Our findings show that among other factors, government expenditure on education as well as primary, secondary and tertiary graduation rates significantly brought about a reduction in unemployment in Nigeria both in the short and long run. We therefore recommend that government should increase its budgetary allocation to the education sector, as well as monitor the utilization of such funds. Government should also sensitize the public on the importance of education both on the individual and society at large.