RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EDUCATION COST AND INTERNAL EFFICIENCY OF SECONDARY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA A CASE STUDY OF FCT ABUJA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The inevitability of education cannot be overemphasized in any society including Nigeria. Education is accepted as a veritable tool for national transformation and integration in human history (Ijaiya, 2012). Education is a tool per-excellence for the intellectual, moral and vocational enhancement of the young members of a given society in other to enhance their social, economic and political well being/fortunes. In fact, no nation can rise above her investment in education. As opined by Olutola (1983), education is the key that unlocks the door to modernization. Education is an expensive service to provide, that is why the citizens of many developing countries including Nigeria expect their governments to at least bear a larger portion of the cost of education (Mankoe, 2005). Large sums of money are annually invested in the educational enterprise by the Local, State and Federal Governments in Nigeria because government has adopted education as an instrument per excellence for enhancing national development (Mbipom, 2000). Thus, substantial amount of the nation’s resources are committed to the education of her citizens. Egwu (2010) reported that over 30.7 billion naira was spent on the funding of basic education in the year 2009 and another 2.7 billion naira was disbursed by UBEC to over 2, 032 community projects that year. When investment is made in education, it is believed that the skills acquired would lead to an increase in the wealth of the nation. Secondary education is an intermediary between primary and tertiary education in Nigeria. It is at this level that individuals take the subjects that would qualify them for professional or vocational programmes at higher level of education. Hence, there is the need to pay attention to the cost of providing such education and the efficiency of secondary schools utilizing the funds. Hence, this study examined the relationship between education cost and internal efficiency of secondary schools in Nigeria.

STATEMENT OF THE GENERAL PROBLEM

The poor performance of secondary schools in Nigeria especially the public secondary schools have led to a lot both on the part of students and the teachers. The poor efficiency of secondary schools has negatively affected the productivity of teachers are teachers are no longer compelled to give in their best, this has spilled over to students having poor grade in both internal and external examinations as evident in the recent WASSCE results where less than half of the entire population of students who sat for the examination recorded a credit in core subjects including mathematics and English language. This constant menace has led to the deterioration of the educational sector through brain drain as most teachers.