Nation Building and Quality Higher Education in Nigeria: Implications for Teacher Education

Abstract Higher education is essential to the acquisition of human knowledge, development of the economy and reformation of the society in all nations. University education is the foremost source of providing the required knowledge that will help generate and accelerate knowledge flow for modern based economies. It plays invaluable roles in the production of quality manpower for the development of the nation. This article reports on a study that addressed the concepts of nation building; quality education; teacher education; current status of teacher education in Nigeria; and teacher education and nation building in Nigeria. The article further recommends strategies for improving teacher education and training (TET) in Nigerian universities, which include, retraining of academic staff in the Nigerian university system (NUS) to embrace ICT/e-learning/m-learning, curbing of financial wastage in the NUS; downsizing the number of support staff; and concentrating more attention on the recruitment of high quality academic staff for enhanced delivery.