Oluchi, Uzoma Florence (2018)

The quest for national development has prompted many developing nations to focus on education since it is recognized globally as the cornerstone of national development. The developed nations of the world are ahead of the developing nations in terms of development particularly in the area of human capital development, entrepreneurship skills development, employment generation and poverty alleviation. These nations are able to achieve this advantage through adequate investment in education. Developed nations annually increase their budget to education with a view to establish more open and distance learning centres to give all their citizens both young and old, privileged and less-privileged the opportunity to acquire education. With this system of education, they are able to achieve national development. Many developing countries including Nigeria have follow suit by introducing open and distance education with a view to achieve national development This paper examines the role of open and distance education in national development of Nigeria. It takes an insight to the contribution of open and distance education to human capital development, entrepreneurship skill development, employment generation and poverty alleviation. It was concluded that open and distance education plays a significant role in national development of Nigeria through the creation of skilled manpower and entrepreneurs, human capacity building, employment generation and poverty alleviation.