Bivariate Granger Causality Analysis between Education and Health Indicators in Nigeria: Implications for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

There existed lack of empirical evidence in Nigeria on the Granger causality between health and education in particular. This study therefore provided econometric estimation of the Granger causality relationship between the variables. The questions of the study are: Does Granger causality existed between health and education variables in Nigeria? If it does exist, what is the direction of the Granger-causality? This relationship is examined using the variables of; secondary school enrolment, literacy rate, primary school enrolment for education, while, maternal mortality, life expectancy and disease burden were used for health. These variables were chosen because of the availability of data among other variables for measuring health and education.  Results showed that bidirectional relationship existed between burden of disease and mortality rate and between primary school enrolment and literacy rate. Other variables for example, out-of-pocket expenditure to burden of disease, mortality rate and literacy rate showed unidirectional relationship. While some others, primary school enrolment and out-of-pocket expenditure showed no causality.  From the study, it was concluded that health and education indicators are interwoven, quality education leads to good health and good health leads to quality education. The results have important implications for attaining the targets envisioned by the UN2030 Sustainable Agenda and Africa 2063 Development Aspirations. The data implications are also discussed.