Functional Education as a Tool for Sustainable Development in Nigeria: Implication for Curriculum Planners.

Abstract

Any nation cannot develop beyond its educational standards or level, thus, education is seen as a catalyst for socio-economic and political development of a nation. The success of many nations is tacking major developmental problems such as poverty, unemployment and inequality among others can be traced to their educational system. Nigeria is not an isolated case as one of its developmental problems is poverty. It is in the light of the above, that this write up examines the relationship between functional education and sustainable development where it illuminates what functional education is, and the concept of sustainable development. The Paper discussed how functional education can be a tool for sustainable development and also elaborated on traditional education as an example of functional education and how it can be harmonized with formal education for effective result. It further explained functional education as obtained in the objectives of national policy on education and explicate the concept of curriculum planners. The write up also looked at the implication for curriculum planners. The paper concludes that functional education is a force that can reduce poverty, create job opportunities and raise income rates. Lastly the paper give some achievable recommendations to the government and other stake holders among which are: ensuring functional education through its funding, policy making, supervision and monitoring of educational project and programmes and ensure that the objective of our educational system is geared towards producing a total person with requisite skills knowledge and values relevant to the 21^st century and beyond.

Keywords:  Functional education, Sustainable development and curriculum planners