Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies

Youth restiveness is an attribute of youthful exuberance which has become a global phenomenon. The increasing rate of youth restiveness is becoming alarming and poses serious challenges to developing countries of the world, especially Nigeria with large population of youths. Youth restiveness has attracted the attentions of policy makers and educational stakeholders in Nigeria. Youth restiveness and its attendant consequences have greatly contributed to insecurities and uncertainties in Nigeria. The focus of this paper is to examine youth restiveness in the 21^st century Nigeria and the roles of functional education in curbing the menace. The study adopted frustration – aggression theory of crime by Dollard et al in 1939 and made conceptual clarifications of youths and their roles in the society as well as the meaning of youth restiveness. The study identified the causes of youth restiveness as bad governance, corruption, unemployment, poverty, lack of adequate recreational facilities and programmes as well as lack of quality functional education in the country. The study also explained the meaning of functional education, the characteristics of functional education and the relevance of functional education in solving the problems of youth restiveness. Finally, the study made a conclusion and suggested among others that government should generate employment in order to effectively engage the youths, provide basic amenities, such as water, good roads, health care services, electricity etc, a functional rule of law in governance to check corruption and bad leadership, adequate provision of security measures for the citizens, and establishment of entrepreneurship programmes at all levels of our educational institutions to equip the youths with the necessary skills to be self-reliance after school.