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High levels of illiteracy, a shortage of skilled labour, and low marginal productivity have collectively created a detrimental impact on various aspects of Nigeria's economic landscape. These issues have resulted in a decline in real income, savings and capital formation. Despite the government's efforts to achieve a minimum adult literacy rate of 65% and promote skill acquisition and knowledge development as pillars for a dynamic economy, these persistent challenges continue to cast a shadow over the economy. In response to these pressing concerns, this study investigates the relationship between investment in education and economic growth in Nigeria between 1980 and 2021 utilizing Autoregressive Distributed Lag bound models. The study reveals that a consistent sustained investment in education is foundational elements for driving Nigeria's future economic growth. Education, with its capacity to enhance human capital, productivity, and innovative capabilities, emerges as a pivotal factor in the journey toward economic prosperity. In light of this, the study emphasizes the critical importance of effective governance in the domain of education. It advocates for a rigorous and vigilant approach by the government in monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of education policies and initiatives. This level of scrutiny is imperative to ensure their efficacy and alignment with the overarching objective of fostering economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no gainsaying in the fact that one of the objectives of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to attain poverty hitch-free by 2030. However, the continuous increase in poverty level has generated a lot of debates among policymakers, scholars and economists while government have also been continuously formulating different policies to avert this ugly situation. Various studies have documented the contributions of human capital development to poverty alleviation in Nigeria with special reference to MDGs and their results might not be transmitted to achieving the SDGs in Nigeria. This study therefore addresses this issue. The paper examines the impact of human capital development on poverty alleviation in Nigeria over the last two and half decades (1990-2017). The results obtained shall be used to project into the future as to whether investments in human capital expenditure has potential to achieve the objectives of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The study adopts a log-linear regression model formulated sequentially from the Solow's neo-classical growth theory and standard Cobb-Douglas production function. The prevalence of poverty rate as a percentage of total population was regressed on unemployment rate, real government expenditures on education and health. The result of the estimated model reveals that real government expenditure on education and unemployment rate both have significant effect on the prevalence of poverty in Nigeria. However, real government expenditure on health has negative but insignificant inelastic effect on the prevalence of poverty rate in Nigeria during the period under review. On this basis, the paper therefore suggests that government should invest more in education and facilitate the integration of vocational training programmes and courses as part of academic curriculum in schools at all levels. Also, government should increase investment in the health sector to ensure improvement and access to quality health facilities in the country, if human capital investment should catalyze SDGs achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]