Paper long abstract:

It is truism that Nigeria has adopted education as an instrument ‘par excellence’ for effecting national development (National Policy on Education, 2004, p.iii). In spite of this however, Nigeria has not developed as much as it is expected to after several years of contact with western formal education. The major cause of the several socio-economic problems that ravage Africa in general and Nigeria in particular is traceable to our failure to incorporate African indigenous values into the curricula being used in primary, elementary and tertiary schools in the continent and Nigeria. This is because the current school curricula were adapted from what is operative in American and European countries without a consideration for what values the continent had. This has subsequently led to a great loss of values in the practice of education in the continent and Nigeria. Today, there are many social vices such as corruption, which manifest in economic and political spheres, moral decadence, lack of requisite skills and competencies and the inability of graduate of tertiary institutions to be job creators in Nigeria. Thus, it can be concluded that western education, in spite of its strengths in the areas of science and technology, has not impacted meaningfully on the continent of Africa and Nigeria and has not, in all practical purposes promoted its national development and integration. Since this situation cannot be allowed to continue unchallenged, it has become imperative now to urgently fuse some of the concepts, which can promote the acquisition of appropriate skills and moral values in indigenous education, with what western education can offer the continent in the curricula being used in elementary and secondary schools in Nigeria. This is one way by which the continent will be on the right way to using education to promote national and continent development. This paper therefore, after reviewing the situation painted above, contains strategies of infusing the values in indigenous education to the curricula of formal education in Nigeria so that education can be used to promote national/continent development and integration.