In the field of education, the "non-formal education approach" to fostering human proficiency in a wide range of skills is credited with having engendered the broadening of educational practice beyond formal schooling through the emergence of methods and techniques of basic education, administrative training and management science. In the field of economics, the relationship between national economic growth and upskilling the population is informed by two major dominant theoretical perspectives. The "human capital approach" considers the relationship between education and national economic growth from purely economic viewpoints, while the "ecological development approach" adopts a liberal stance and argues for a democratisation of educational opportunities. After reviewing this theoretical background, the authors of this article focus on the need to strengthen non-formal education in Nigeria with the aim of promoting national economic growth. They propose that the National Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-formal Education Commission (NMEC), launched in 1991, should be upgraded to a ministry of non-formal education. They argue that this kind of dedicated ministry is already operating successfully in many developing Asian and industrialised nations, serving to coordinate all basic education programmes with a special focus on citizens with low literacy. In Nigeria, the authors argue, such a ministry could provide training and retraining of all workers in both the public and private sectors of the economy, facilitate administrative training and executive management education as well as taking on responsibility for all continuing professional training programmes at all levels of the polity. The authors conclude their article by setting out the main elements of their proposed programme development framework for non-formal education.