The study examined government spending in education and poverty in Nigeria from 1990-2020. The objectives of the study were to; examine the effect of government capital and recurrent expenditure in the education sector on poverty level in Nigeria. Annual data were collected from CBN statistical bulletin and World Development Index (WDI). The technique of Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was used for the analysis But the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) unit root test was used to ascertain the order of integration of the variables before the variables were subjected to the ARDL model. The unit root test result showed that the dependent variable (Poverty index) was stationary at level, while the independent variables government capital and recurrent spending in the education sector were stationary at first difference. The ARDL error correction model results showed that; Government capital expenditure in education has negative and significant impact on the rate of poverty in Nigeria. Government recurrent expenditure in education has positive and insignificant impact on the rate of poverty in Nigeria. Based on the results, the study concluded that; reduction in the rate of poverty was aided by capital spending in the education sector as against the recurrent expenditure. Based on the findings, the study recommended that government education spending should be skewed towards the capital component as this will help to facilitate socioeconomic development in terms of reduction poverty level, if they are tailored towards infrastructural development. Also, government recurrent expenditure in the education sector should be well used for prompt payment of workers remuneration