APPRAISAL OF BUDGETARY PRACTICES IN GRANT-AIDED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NORTH CENTRAL, NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The importance of effective budgetary practices at all levels of economy has for long been the major concern of many educationists, economists and politicians. This is because effective budgetary practices reflect the focus of administrators’ expenditure and revenue for major development in any financial year. Aguba (2009) believed that a budget is a financial blue print for the operation of organization, including the school system, for the fiscal year. In consonance with this, Ogbonnaya (2005) defined a budget as the financial statement of the proposed expenditure and expected revenue of the government, public corporations, or educational institutions for a particular period of time. Budget, therefore is an itemized summary of estimated or intended expenditures for a given period along with proposals for financing organizational programmes necessary for the attainment of pre-determined objectives. Budget is expected to control wastage and extravagant spending in grant-aided secondary schools.

School budget is an established financial standard needed to consciously guide the activities of a school administrator towards the attainment of the aims and objectives of the school in a given fiscal year (Ayodele, 2006). This position is in line with the United States General Accounting office report in 1998 when it asserted that school budgeting had historically been the process of balancing expenditure with revenue to effect changes in spending, a process policy makers.