Reinventing Economics Education for National Security

Abstract

The imperativeness of national security to sustainable development has in recent years made it one of the main goals pursued by both developing and developed nations. Consequently, this paper focused on examining reinventing Economics Education for national security. The purpose of the study was to understand the security challenge in Nigeria, establishing the role of Economics in promoting national security and the strategies for reinventing Economics Education for national security. The paper found that the roles of Economics Education in promoting national security include that Economics Education promotes Human Capital Development, prepares individuals for productive employment, promotes national unity and imparts economic literacy that enables individuals to participate in national economic discourse and proffer solutions to issues challenging national security. Furthermore, the study found that the strategies reinventing Economics Education for national security are: by repositioning the Economics curriculum, integration of more entrepreneurial contents into the Economics curriculum to meet current needs, ensuring strict adherence to the implementation of Economics curriculum for the production of quality or competent students who can proffer solution to societal problem, provision of educational facilities and infrastructure to implement Economics curriculum and Training and retraining of Economics educators: this is another way of improving Economics Education for national security. Some suggestions were made which, among others, include that the government should improve on the budgetary allocation to the educational sector in order to provide all the necessary facilities that are needed for effective Economics Education. That there should be improved motivation of Economics educators by the government, school authority and the general public for maximum performance by the teachers, and the government should establish research centres and provide adequate funding.