Measuring the Regional Variations in Educational Attainment and Inequality in Nigeria

This article measures educational inequality between northern and southern regions in Nigeria and compare it with the educational distribution within regions using Theil index and decomposition analysis. The main finding of the article is that disparity in access to education within regions rather than between North and southern regions is the major cause of educational inequality in Nigeria. The result also shows that educational attainment and inequality are negatively related. Educational inequality is higher in the north than in the south as 17 out of 19 states of northern Nigeria have higher Theil index than the national Theil index.