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Education is the basic rudimentary element upon which every developed societies are built. Nations that thrived to invest in education as a tool for the development of skills and human capital which can be used to produce wealth and sustain the society. The education and its infrastructural decay in Nigeria began in the late 90s when the sector was starved of funding (Oni & Abiodun, 2010). With the trend of events, educational sector in Nigeria went down a slope. Despite, the Federal Government interventions, through the establishment of Universal Basic Education (UBE), Educational Trust Fund (ETF), Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) and series of reforms programmes aimed at improving education for all, not much had been realized.
The gap between Educational Infrastructure and scientific knowledge acquisition is widening considerably in the Nigeria System which rises fundamental question about where is the country heading to in the 21st century digital knowledge economy? Federal Government needs to improve capital spending on infrastructure geared boosting education and generic knowledge acquisition through hybridation of traditional paradigm and scientific methodology. A healthy and educated citizen will definitely help to improve the economy in a significant measure while a country whose commitment is not directed towards health and education will always have unemployable citizens because knowledge for structured debate and constructive dialogue will be missing. The UNESCO (United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation) recommendation that government should commit 15% to 25% of the nation's budget on education to ensure a positive and healthy trend in knowledge distribution, (Oye, Salleh, & Iahad, 2011). Unfortunately, education sector allocation over the last eight years, as the percentage of the federal budget, is falling. The 2018 budget on education in Nigeria should have been N2.2trilion ‘not the abysmal N606billion, if the recommendation were to be followed. If the government failed to act now, over 20 million young Nigerians will have minimal or no skills to compete in an increasingly competitive global world. Needless to say, increasing crime rate and poverty are directly linked to lack of skills and education ravaging some parts of the country especially the North Eastern Nigeria.
On her first visit to Nigeria as the British Secretary of State, Penny Mordaunt in 2018, informed Nigeria that as UK exit from European Union approaches, that she want to see Nigeria and UK partnership move from Relationship-Based on Aid to Relationship-based on economic prosperity, trade and investment between the two countries. While in 2017, Britain halved the amount of money given to Nigeria as Humanitarian Aid and asked the country government to step up. Nigeria as a nation is already aware that in the near future, there may nothing any more like Aid therefore is expected to invent in reusable technologies to drive key innovations as a matter of urgency. The fourth Industrial age regarded as “Industry 4.0” is here to offer seemingly limitless opportunities and seemingly limitless options for innovative technologies, opportunities and investments in progressive knowledge economy.