Budgeting in Education
Budgeting in Education
Budgeting in Education
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Budgeting has the technical functions of authorizing expenditure and serves as a microscope
in analysis of details. It is an instrument for planning and controlling educational activities
because it fosters coordination, communication and promotes efficiency in operating the
business. The budgeting practices in Educational institutions follow a systematic procedure.
This includes budget planning, budget defence, budget approval and adoption, budget
implementation and budget evaluation. As a result of the organizational structure of the
Secondary Education System in South-East Geo-Political Zone, the budgetary practices are
controlled at Ministry of Education and Secondary Education Management Board (SEMB)
levels. The principals of schools are not involved in all the stages of the budgeting practices
mentioned above. They are highly engaged in the planning, defence and implementation
stages while the Secondary Education Management Boards and Ministry of Education carry
out budget approval, adoption and evaluation. The Ministry of Education and Secondary
Education Management Board (SEMB) do these jobs through the account supervisors who
monitor and verify the financial activities of educational administrators. Ezeocha (1995),
defined supervisors as professionals outside or withinthe school who work to improve the
teaching / learning process.
This shows that account supervisors are leaders who perform the periodic criticism,
verification, clarification and justification of financial activities of the schools through
checking of the financial account records kept in the schools so that educational resources
will not be misappropriated by fraudulent administrators. The school boards send budget
guidelines to schools and request the principals to follow its specification objectively in
planning and implementation of the school budget.
Importance of Budgeting
The importance of budgeting in education consist of the following:
1. Budgeting helps to ensure that we have correct estimates of revenue and expenditure.
2. Budgeting help us to spend as budgeted, that is, expenditure will be as per the budget.
3. Budgeting helps institutions to meet their objectives.
4. Budgeting forms the basis of accounting and therefore institutions become more
efficient.
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5. Budgeting makes it possible to provide equitable allocation of resources.
6. Budgeting helps to determine the quality and quantity of services in the institution or
in an organization.
7. The budget itself confers authority to administrators or head teachers to collect and to
spend money appropriately and effectively.
8. The budget ensures economic use of resources and for the appropriate projects that
are needful to be funded.
9. Budgeting helps education institutions to achieve the purpose expected by the society.
10. Budgeting also cautions administrators or head teacher against unrealistic optimisms.
In other words it helps to check on the kind of decisions that are made by the
administrators.
11. A budget also forms the basis of future budgets. The plan of a budget will help to
formulate and plan for the future budgets.
12. The budget will help in coordinating different units and departments towards general
goals of the school
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Polytechnics 2,160,000,0 1,878,660,0 6,303,000,00 8,495,000
0 0 0 ,000
0 0
Colleges of 2,666,000,0 2,303,920,0 7,210,880,00 8,000,000
Education 0 0 0 ,000
0 0
Monotechni 610,000,000 640,500,000 900,000,000 2,841,120
cs ,000
SSES 4,270,500,0 4,270,500,0 4,270,500,00 12,667,32
0 0 0 0,000
0 0
SPEBS 3,870,000,0 3,870,000,0 10,836,000,0 NA
(UBEC) 0 0 0
0 0 0
SPEBS 4,270,500,0 182,500,000 7,593,140,00 NA
(JSS) 0 0
0
Source: Education Trust Fund in Nigeria Annual Abstract of Statistics (2012 edition).
NBS, Nigeria
As indicated in Table 1, majority of the funds were allocated to the different arms of tertiary
institutions, such as the universities, polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education
during the period while little were allocated for primary education (as depicted by allocation
to UBEC) and secondary education. It is noteworthy that Federal Government of Nigeria
believes that because tertiary education occupies the apex position in the education ladder, it
should enjoy much funds whereas primary education that serves as the foundation on which
other education levels rest are less favoured in spite of the evidences of its marasmic funding
in the country.
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three tiers of government in Nigeria are greatly influenced by the political ideology
and manifesto of the ruling political party more than the economic and financial
capability of the federal or state government. The political party in power do exerts
much influence on the allocation of financial resources to the educational system.
During the second republic, the political party that controlled the western states (i.e.
Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo,) considered free education a priority and thus earmarked
stupendous fund to its implementation. This was also the case in the case of the
Universal Primary Education in the Western region in 1955. The same feat was
repeated in 1999 when the part, tagged ‘Alliance for Democracy’ was in control of
power in the south west states. This encouraged the governors of the affected states to
allocate more funds for the implementation of free education policy in their respective
States then where in the other states, controlled by federal government, the ‘Free
education policy’ was not considered as feasible thus making government not to
allocate much fund along this direction.
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are mismanaged or misappropriated by those in charge. Quite disturbing is the fact
that they do this and get away with it because of their powerful influence in the
society. It is thus not surprising that in spite of the huge expenditure on education in
Nigeria, there is less to show for it in terms of infrastructural facilities and
performance of pupils/students in examinations.
3. Delay in the Release of Funds Allocated to Education: In spite of the low financial
allocation to education in Nigeria, one issue that is noticeable is the fact that it has
been very difficult for the funds allocated to education to be released as and when
due. There have been situations where Federal Government will have to prepare
and submit an appropriation budget to the National Assemblies due to non-release
of education allocation. In most states in Nigeria, financial allocations to education
sector only appears on development to be achieved in the sector.
Way Forward
The following should be done to eradicate the problems of budgeting in Nigeria:
1. Government should encourage the participation of the NGOs and the private sector
education. The implication of government being the sole financier and administrator
of education has its manifestation in under- funding of the institutions, moral
decadence, poor quality education, brain drain, incessant strike actions, and closure of
schools, ineffective control and management.
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intensify population control through implementation of primary and secondary
school curriculum in family life education and engage in mass education of Planned
Parenthood. By controlling population growth, government will be able to reduce
the long-term pressure on resources available for education.
4. Institutions should vigorously adopt the mechanism for internally generated funds.
Institutions should establish and equip a unit in their campus solely for the purpose
of generating funds internally e.g. mixed agriculture, catering services, consultancy
services, printing and laundry services, transport, bookshops, publishing, sales, and
machines production.
7. To increase its patronage and improve its status, government should allocate more
fund for it, provide more infrastructures and facilities, teachers, instructional
materials for the non-formal training centres. There should also be orientation of
the masses towards enrolling in adult literacy centres.
8. Funds allocated should be disbursed on time in time in order to avoid the loss in
real value arising from inflation. A number of uncompleted projects in education
are as a result of depression in real value of the money.
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It is not a gainsaying that the growth and development of educational system in a nation is
tied to the financial allocation to it by government and other avenues where funds can be
accrued to it. In this paper, the trend in the financing of education in Nigeria was
discussed. In addition to this was the discussion of issues in the financial allocation to the
education sector. In order for the issues to be resolved and for education to move to lofty
height in Nigeria, a lot of recommendations were made in this paper. It thus behooves on
education stakeholders, in particular, the government to strive to ensure that these
recommendations are effected, which ultimately, will lead to a great development of the
educational system.
References
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