Financing Education in Nigeria: Implications and Options for National Development

The future of any country lies in the quality of its education. Education remains the major tool for national socio-economic development, individual socio-economic empowerment and poverty reduction. Unfortunately, one of major problem now facing education in Nigeria is the issue of underfunding. We have, in the last decades, witnessed a gradual degradation in infrastructure, in manpower development and access to qualitative education. Precisely, the federal government spending on education is below 10 percent of its overall budget. This is largely due to the fall of the oil market, and the need to reduce the huge and raising debt service obligations. This study critically examined the past and present situation of financing education in Nigeria, the implications of inadequate funding and possible strategies of funding education. Thus, it was suggested among others that all stakeholders, parents and guardians, the society in general, the private sector and non-governmental agencies must become involved in the financing of education in Nigeria.

teaching staff leaving the country in droves in search of greener pastures abroad. Apart from the impact of inadequate funding on the quality of the teaching and learning process in our institute of education, student support is now inadequate (Ubogu, 2011). It was therefore, not surprising that the late Yar' Adu's administration had to be confronted by labour unions in the educational sector with long lists of demand on what should be done to uplift the sector. The unions, one after the other, had to go on strike to press home their points. The ensuing face-off-between the Federal Government and Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) resulted to the shutting of the universities for close to four months.
Adewale, Ajayi and Enikanoselu (2006) were of the opinion that education in Nigeria has been experiencing financial crises. There is less money to spend on primary, secondary and tertiary education. There are increasing complaints about the underfunding of the educational sector while the government accuses the sector of inefficient utilization of available resources. The donor argues that public spending on education should be reduced. However, the fact remains that education in Nigeria has he en experiencing loss of facility, deterioration of equipment and plans, and uncompleted projects as a result of the financial crises facing the system.

An Overview of Financing Education in Nigeria
Education funding comes from different sources. The major one at all levels of government is public revenue from taxation. Education funds are reported to be distributed among primary, secondary and tertiary educational levels in the proportion of 30%, 30% and 40% respectively, Balurni (2003). The public funding includes direct government expenditures in the form of subsidies to households such as lax reductions, scholarships, loans and grants. It also includes payment from Education Tax Funds (ETF) mainly for capital expenditure. At present, private sources account for about 20% of total national donors. Particularly in the form of loans (Adewale et al., 2006).
The underlying rational for public funding of education is to equip people with the requisite knowledge, skills and capacity to enhance the quality of life and increase productivity and capacity to gain knowledge of new techniques for production so as to be able to participate evocatively in the development process.
With education regarded as "free" goods by the provider, the demand for it soared to such an extent that by the end of the 1980s, government could hardly cope. Of course, while the quantity of education increased dramatically, the quality nose-dived to an unprecedented level. Hinchiliffer (2002) highlighted that federal budgetary allocation to education in nominal terms rose from N 6.2 million in 1970 to N 1,051.2 million in 1976. Thereafter, it declined to N 667.1 million in 1979, rose again to N1, 23.5 million in 1980, declined in succeeding years before rising to N 3,399.3 million in 1989. It dropped further to N 1, 553, 3 million in 1991 before rising gradually to N 9,434.7 million in 1994.
Thereafter, the declining trend continued.
While each tier of education has at various times been the concurrent. (Joint) responsibility of both Federal and state governments, the former has historically been much more involved at the post secondary level. Table 2   In five out of the seven years, the allocation to secondary education has been above that for primary.  Adedigba (2017)    The phenomenon of allocating and disbursing a fraction of below 2% of the GDP to education in a country like Nigeria poses a serious danger to the country's long term growth and development. Below is a Table 5 for some countries where data are available for Government spending, percent of GDP.  percent respectively where among the lowest values. Evident from the above is that the funding mechanism for education in Nigeria, as other countries, needs to be developed for the country to achieve the vision 2020 dream.

Implication of Education Financing in Nigeria
In the last three decades, education in Nigeria has witnessed a significant growth in terms of expansion of access through increase in enrollment and establishment of additional institutions. However, it is sad to note that many of the indices that can guarantee qualitative education are not taken into consideration in the country's quest to meet quantitative target. It has been found that political factors are the main motives behind many of the expansion polices especially, in the university system (Ekundayo, 2008). In fact, capital projects to meet the expanding programmes could not take off and where they did take off, they had to be abandoned due to lack of funds.
Given the poor state of the country's budget to education, the current financing trend might not be sustained in the near future. The revenue from government allocations have to increase to meet this rising costs or else education at all levels will suffer setbacks either in total number of staff, in relative wage and salary increase or in capital and equipment. The fact remains that education in Nigeria has been experiencing loss of facilities, deterioration' of equipment and plants and uncompleted projects as a result of financial crises facing the system.
When all this pressure does not meet with increasing revenues, the results are obvious less increase in efficiency and productivity and diminished quality and output (i.e., teaching, scholarship and services, diminished working and living condition for professors, staff and students alike) (Adewale et al., 2006).
In addition, in many public institutions of learning, students are found standing outside the classrooms receiving lectures us their population has outstripped the classroom space that are available. The implication of all these is that output from this investment process in education cannot actually achieve the goals that were set for it.
It is a known fact that most of our institutions neither have a written or unwritten vision nor a mission statement to guide their activities. There is widespread shortage of qualified teachers, shortage of even classrooms, shortage of both pupils and teachers' furniture and a dearth of required funds teaching materials and textbooks. In a survey conducted on primary education cost, financing and management in Federal Capital Territory, Kogi, Kwara and Niger states, it was discovered that only 9.57% of the schools in Kwara and 27.08% of the schools in FCT had school libraries while none of the schools in both Kogi and Niger States had any school library. It was also found that 24% of schools in Kogi state, 21% of schools in Kwara state, 40.3% of schools in Niger state and 16.75% of schools in FCT did not use any form of wall chart teaching aids (Adulkareen & Umar, 1997). All these gaps have combined with frequent teachers' strikes and absenteeism in recent years to weaken the capacity of the institutions to deliver sound education.
Thus, it becomes necessary to proffer alternative strategies for sustaining the revenue base of educational institutions in Nigeria.

Possible Options of Financing Education in Nigeria
Financing education in Nigeria today is a crucial national problem. The political, social and economic factors, which currently have significant impact on the world economy, have necessitated the need to diversify the sources of education funding, mainly because reliance on only one source of revenue can inhibit educational growth (Akinsanya, 2007). However, these are some possible options of financing education: (a). Support from federal and state governments constituting more than 98% of the recurrent costs and 100% (if capital cost (Ogunlade, 1989)).
(b). Tuition and fees. (c). Private contributions by commercial organizations in the form of occasional grants for specific purposes.
(d). Consultancies and research activities.
Other sources of finance to education in Nigeria include endowments, gifts and aids from international organizations. For example, the World Bank has' financed a US$ 120 million project titled: Federal Universities Development Sector Operation (Odebyiyi & Ainu, 1999;Babalola, Sikwibele, & Sulciman, 2000).
In addition, the following strategies are considered as way of resourceful financing of education in Nigeria:

Cost-Saving Strategies
Many investigations studies have shown that overall cost can be reduced if the following strategies are adopted in the education sector. Below is a 8-point strategy: 1) Merging smaller university or, other schools of learning.
2) Designing multi-purpose accommodation in the universities as in Britain. Only few houses should be rented outside by school authorities.
3) Adopting scientific/computer based time table for space allocation. It is interesting to note that two universities in Britain increased utilization of teaching rooms from 60 to over 80%. 8) Increasing student/teacher ratio and reduction of number of expatriate are available locally.

Income Generating Strategies
The following 8-point strategies are considered by the author as good for generous income in all levels of education.

1)
Establishing standard nursery, primary, secondary schools which can which can generate a lot of money for the university.
2) Establishing well stocked bookshop for commercial purposes.

3)
Through consultancy service such as sandwich programmes, part-time programmes.

4)
Involving faculty members in carrying out functional research. Such projects would interest industries and other commercial enterprises that would pay for them.

5)
Establish endowment funds which should be properly managed.

6)
Seeking support and grants form states, local government and catchment area of the school.

7)
Seeking assistance from international donors such as UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, etc.

8)
Establishing guest house within and outside the institution.

Conclusion
The fact remains that education in Nigeria has experienced loss of facilities, deterioration of equipment and plants and uncompleted projects as a results of the financial crisis facing the system. The phenomenon of allocating a declining fraction of below 2 percent of the GDP to education poses a serious danger to the country's long-term growth and development prospects. Large variances exist between budgetary provisions and actual expenditure because budgetary pronouncement is not backed by fund releases (Adewaleetal, 2006).
It is quite clear from the foregoing that for education in Nigeria to achieve its stated objectives, the crucial issue of funding must be squarely addressed by education managers in Nigeria. To sustain education in the country, the following suggestions are hereby made: 1) The present effort of the Federal Ministry of Education in collaboration with both the UNESCO and UNDP on the creation of an educational data bank is highly commendable (FGN/UNESCO/UNDP 2003). The government should give the bank all the enabling environment required to generate and analyze and bank the data. The institutional managers and teachers should be constantly trained and retrained in modern data management techniques; 2) There is also the need for an entirely new approach to financial management, responsibility and accountability that will enable the educational institutions to thrive during a period of constrained public support and; 3) All stakeholders must become involved in the financing-parents and guardians, the society in general, the private sectors and non-government agencies.