Political Leadership and Education for Sustainable Development in Nigeria: An Assessment of Akwa Ibom State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Uyo

Education for sustainable Development (ESD) targets at acquisition of knowledge, skills, values and attitudinal changes in both formal and informal sectors to increased productive population in the state for job creation and economic self-reliance of the people in present generation without compromising the future generations. However, a gap exists as most leaders in the state failed to give top priority to education as potential nexus for development in Nigeria. Corruption among leaders in the education sector was identified as a major drawback to education in developing economies. The main objective of the study was to examine the relationship between political leadership and ESD in Nigeria with reference to Akwa Ibom State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) using Education Index proxied by literacy rate (average adult year of schooling and expected year of schooling), education budget/implementation, quality and access to education. Descriptive research and Survey of study population of about 40,266 comprising of appointed education officials in 2,826 schools affiliated to SUBEB with sample size of 380 determined using Krejcie and Morgan table (1970). Simple random and stratified random sampling techniques were used to administer 12 items questionnaire on the respondents. Simple percentage, Pearson Moment Correlation Co-efficient and tabular form were adopted for data presentation and analysis. The study among others revealed that: Political leadership has significant direct relationship with ESD in Akwa Ibom State. It recommended policy reforms to reduce anomalies in educational management and adequate funding to meet UNESCO education budget baseline of 26%, employment of more qualified teachers, training and re-training of teachers to develop technical skills in entrepreneurship education; provision of libraries, laboratories and other facilities for modern research/innovations.