Investing in effective education could increase Nigerians’ labour earnings by about 20 per cent over the long term, the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Said Ahmad, has said.
Ahmad stated this on Monday in Abuja while delivering an inaugural lecture titled, “Science Education and the Nigerian Economy: Investing in Human Capital for Sustainable Economic Growth,” at the maiden National Conference on Non-Interest Finance and Economic Development in Nigeria, organised by the Institute of Capital Market Studies, Nasarawa State University, Keffi.
The minister said Nigeria’s economic transformation could not be achieved without sustained investment in the knowledge, skills and capabilities of its people.
She cited the World Bank’s February 2026 Human Capital Index Plus findings, which indicated that raising Nigeria’s effective years of schooling to 12 could increase labour earnings by about 20 per cent over the long term.
Ahmad, however, stressed that the quality of education mattered as much as the number of years spent in school.
“The word ‘effective’ matters: additional time in school must produce additional learning,” she said.
The minister said science education was particularly important because it equipped learners with the ability to understand problems, apply evidence and develop solutions that could improve lives and productivity.
She illustrated the point with the example of a 12-year-old girl learning about water purification who asks how seemingly clean water could be confirmed to be safe.
According to her, such curiosity could become the foundation for innovation if the learner had access to capable teachers, safe learning environments and opportunities to investigate problems.
“Science education builds human capital when curiosity develops into the ability to understand problems, apply evidence and create solutions,” she said.
Ahmad expressed concern over Nigeria’s poor foundational learning outcomes, citing UNICEF’s Nigeria Education Fact Sheets 2023, which reported that only 27 per cent of children aged seven to 14 had foundational reading skills, while 25 per cent had foundational numeracy skills.
She noted that the disparity was even wider between children from wealthy and poor households, with reading skills standing at 66 per cent among children from the richest households compared with four per cent among those from the poorest households.
“These figures measure opportunity, not intelligence,” she said, stressing that weak foundational learning could undermine subsequent science, technical and vocational education.
The minister said Nigeria needed to strengthen its education system from foundational learning through technical training, higher education, research and innovation if it was to translate human capital into economic growth.
She identified teachers as a critical link between educational investments and learning outcomes, saying infrastructure, technology and curriculum could only produce results when teachers possessed the required knowledge and skills to use them effectively.
Ahmad said the National Teacher Professional Development Framework and the Accelerated Teacher Professionalisation Pathway were among efforts aimed at improving teachers’ classroom capabilities.
She also highlighted the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI), which she said provides a national framework built around six interconnected pillars.
According to her, the framework covers areas including out-of-school children and Almajiri education, girl-child education, data and digitalisation, education quality assurance, teacher development, technical and vocational education and STEMM.
The minister said the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) had provided scholarships to 466,876 vulnerable girls, while 225,000 students had gained digital literacy skills.
She added that the LUMINAH 2030 initiative was targeting the education and economic empowerment of one million underserved girls by 2030.
On digitalisation, Ahmad said about 221,000 schools had been captured on the National Education Management Information System, while 51,523 teachers had been registered on EduRevamp.
She said technical and vocational education and training was also being linked more closely with employment opportunities, with about 160,000 young people matched to opportunities, more than 73,000 enrolled and over 1,700 centres accredited.
The minister further disclosed that ₦2.2bn had been awarded to 45 student ventures under the Student Venture Capital Grant programme.
She said the initiative demonstrated how education, research, innovation and finance could be connected to create economic value.
Ahmad urged stakeholders to ensure that research findings and innovations moved beyond academic institutions into products and services capable of addressing real-world problems.
She said a research idea, such as an affordable water-treatment technology, required technical validation, intellectual property protection, regulatory approvals, appropriate financing and an enterprise capable of producing and distributing the solution before it could benefit households.
The minister therefore called for stronger collaboration among researchers, industry players, finance professionals, regulators and investors to accelerate the commercialisation of Nigerian innovations.
She also advocated the careful consideration of alternative financing mechanisms for education, including education bonds, blended finance, research commercialisation funds and infrastructure partnerships.
Ahmad cautioned, however, that education financing should not become an avenue for careless borrowing or commercially driven decisions that could undermine public interest.
“Every instrument must identify its purpose, beneficiaries, evidence, costs and risks, and the capability it will leave behind,” she said.
She called for greater accountability in education spending, urging stakeholders to track whether investments were translating into improved learning, stronger teaching, innovation and productive employment.
“Every naira should leave behind stronger human capability,” the minister said.
Ahmad maintained that Nigeria’s long-term prosperity would depend less on its finite natural resources and more on its ability to continuously develop the capabilities of its people.
“Oil can be depleted. Machines become obsolete. A nation that continuously develops the scientific capability of its people can renew its capacity to create value, generation after generation,” she said.
She urged government, investors, educational institutions and industry to make human capital development a central priority in their economic planning.
