PERCEPTIONS OF STAKEHOLDERS ON THE IMPACT OF FUNDING ON THE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1        Background to the Study

The changing nature of the society in which the education system exists, is saddled with strong competition with the various sectors of public life. This is so because education today is accepted as an instrument per excellence. It is the live wire that gingers the machinery of scientific and technological development. Education is also a hallmark of incorporating and transmitting man‟s improved ideology, culture and traditions, towards shaping man‟s mind to develop his human resources and potentials for harnessing his environmental resources.

The indispensable role of education in nation building and intellectual development therefore, suggests the need for adequate participation in management, control and funding at all levels by its citizens and government. This is further emphasized in Article 26 of the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The Declaration stated in very clear terms the right to education, so that citizens can become useful to themselves and to the society at large.

Today education is the largest and fastest growing industry in the world. This is so, because education has attracted some significant amount of human, financial and material resources (man, material and money), on the part of governments, organizations and individuals. It is in view of this that a prominent African pedagogue, Moumoun (1980:242) is quoted as saying:-

The goal of education is to continue to raise the culture, technical and scientific level of the people and train the greatest number of specialized cadres with high qualifications, in order to have an uninterrupted expansion of production in all fields and construct the society.

Marshall (1990) stated that world leaders at various levels have expressed the importance of education. Brezhnev to her citizens, the late Soviet Head of State in an address to teachers in 1968, expressed that the greatest achievement of their country was   educating   the   people.   Furthermore,   Marshall   (1990:216)  emphasized     the importance of education as a national investment and the most valuable of all capital investments in human beings. The need for human resource development as a process of increasing the knowledge, skills and capacities of all people in a society is always stressed by economists. The goals of modern society are political, cultural as well as economic. Human resource management is a necessary condition for achieving all of them.

PERCEPTIONS OF STAKEHOLDERS ON THE IMPACT OF FUNDING ON THE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA