This paper examined educational growth and its contribution to national development in Nigeria. The paper adopted review of literature to present the sequence of innovations in curriculum development and the evolving policies and programmes targeted at improving education and enhancing the achievement of national goals and national development. The paper identify different educational systems and programmes such as the introduction of Universal Primary Education UPE in 1976 and Universal Basic Education UBE in 2000, highlighting the achievements recorded from each of the programmes and the challenges which hinder its success. The challenges identified include, poor funding, poor implementation, lack of infrastructures, inadequate in-service training for teachers and inadequate qualified teachers among others. The authors also discuss the effectiveness of basic education in national development and thus suggest that Government should ensure complete implementation of the UBE programme by reviewing the policy document that established the programme and ensure full implementation. Government should employ qualified teachers to meet the growing population of the students, ensuring that appropriate student-teacher ratio are maintained at the basic schools.