A Professor of Sociology, Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Patrick Edewor, has said that more investment in education will help in checking rapid population growth in Nigeria.
Edewor argued that high population growth had become an impediment to the realisation of socio-economic goals in the country.
According to him, education is the best contraceptive, especially for the girl-child, because the rapid population growth in African countries including Nigeria, is largely a function of persistently high fertility in the face of sharply declining mortality.
“There is an ever-growing desire in every nation to reduce mortality rates to a very low level, but if fertility levels are not reduced correspondingly, the populations of African countries will continue to escalate,” he said.
He disclosed this while delivering the university’s 16th inaugural lecture entitled, “Be Fruitful, Multiply And Replenish The Earth: The Motivation, the Cost and the Gains.”
The lecturer added that as long as Africans perceived large families as an advantage or as long as children were seen as economic assets that could contribute to household economy or serve as a means of old age security support, high fertility would persist.
“Similarly, socio-psychological benefits of children, including the perception of children as source of social prestige or as instruments of the enhancement of social status and son preference, will continue to sustain high fertility, which is associated with poverty,” he explained.
Edewor, who is the first professor of Sociology in the university, also disclosed that data had shown that Nigeria was the second country with the fastest growing population, after India, adding that it had been projected that by 2050 it would be the third most populous country in the world with a population of 411 million, coming behind India and China.
“At present, Nigeria constitutes 2.6 percent of world population, about 15.3 percent of Africa’s population of sub-Saharan Africa and 51 percent of the population of West Africa,” he disclosed.
He stated that with this data, “at the micro and macro societal levels, prolific child bearing, high fertility and rapid population growth are disadvantageous, especially in a country in which the economy is growing much more slowly as is the case of Nigeria.”
The don, therefore, called for a vigorous pursuit of education, especially for the girl child and particularly in the northern geo-political zones of Nigeria, coupled with social and economic development, if fertility and population must be checked.
He said that this would help to raise the marriage age for the female, change the life styles and world-view of men and women as well as enhance women status and create a more egalitarian relationship among couples to foster inter-spousal communication regarding family size and family planning.
“It will also raise the cost of rearing children through widespread schooling, which will reduce their labour value,” he stated.
He added that education would cause couples to become knowledgeable about family planning, alter traditional high fertility norms as educated men and women were less likely to depend on children as a means of old-age support.
In his remark the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof Aaron Atayero, who was represented by his deputy, Prof. Akan Williams, said inaugural lectures afford professors the opportunity to give account of their contribution to knowledge and their impact in the society.
He said the university’s ranking as Nigeria’s best private university by Times Higher Education, last month, was an indication that scholars in the institution were doing their best to contribute to knowledge, not only in Africa but the
world.
He said that the feat came six years into the process of actualising Covenant University’s divine vision of becoming one of the top 10 universities in the world by the year 2022, otherwise known as Vision 10:2022.
“The current administration of the institution had in its bid to rev up the drive towards the fulfilment of the vision, introduced the “Recite Agenda,” which would simply entail a research-intensive approach,” he
explained.
