3.3 Column Density Calculations
4.3.4 Data Analysis
Tertiary education includes universities, polytechnics, monotechnics
and colleges of education. Since tertiary education falls under the Concurrent Legislative list in the 1999 Constitution, all these institutions are funded by their respective proprietors. However, in the 70s, Aminu (1986) reported that a regional university of Ahmadu Bello was getting 75% of both its recurrent and capital budget from the Federal Government. The regional University of Nigeria and University of Ife were getting respectively 30% recurrent and 50% capital subventions from the Federal Government respectively. The current situation is that state universities no longer receive such financial support from the Federal Government except through interventionagencies of the Federal Government like the Education Tax Fund.
Some of the conventional sources of funding institutions of higher
learning include the following:
3.4.3.1 Government Subventions (Grants)
Government grants and subventions constitute about 98% of the total budget of Federal Universities. It is instructive to note that university education is tuition free at the Federal Universities. Public universities in Nigeria depend solely on their respective owners for funding. The situation is a bit different in state universities that charge tuition.
According to Akangbou (1987), this method of funding education is usually very important because in most, if not all countries, education is seen as a social service and governments allocate a sizeable proportion of their annual budget to the provision and financing of education.
According to Aina (2007), in North American public universities, about 77% of universities budget was received from the government, and 7%
was derived from tuition fees, 5% from institutions’ internally generated funds, 4% from foreign aid, 1.5% and 1% from private and industrial donations respectively. This tends to confirm that government
funding of universities is a general situation all over the world.
According to Okebukola (2003), for the purpose of administration, funds to universities are classified as recurrent or capital. In turn, the recurrent category is partitioned into personnel and overhead costs.
Personnel costs take care of staff salaries and allowances. Overhead costs take care of the routine expenses for running the university including such items as equipment, building and road maintenance, payment of utility bills, fuelling of cars, refreshments for meetings, payment of council allowance, as well as hostel and ground
maintenance.
Expenses involving building construction, purchase of laboratory, workshop, clinic and studio equipment, purchase of vehicles, major
rehabilitation of plants and machinery are covered under capital costs.
Data available in NUC from federal universities show that in 2002, 98%
of personnel expenses were paid for through grants from the Federal
Governments through the National Universities Commission (NUC,
2003). For overhead and capital expenses, government remained the major financier. Table 2 shows the sources of funds for universityfinancing.
Table 2: Sources of funds for the Universities
Personnel Overhead
Source
Government grant Other sources Government grant Income from user charges
Percentage 98
245 49
Capital
Source: NUC, 2003
Income from investment
6Government grant 68 (NUC)
Government grant (ETF) 12
Private sector support10 Income from investment 4 Others
6All other grants/revenues outside the government yearly subventions are regarded as endowments, fees/levies; gifts; international aids;
investments and other internally generated revenues.
3.4.3.2 Donations and Endowments
Other sources of funding education in institutions of higher learning in
Nigeria are through donations and endowments. Aina (2007) observed that at the University of Ibadan, a major way of generating money for the university is through endowments. This initiative started as a result of harsh economic conditions occasioned by the civil war. These two forms of financing educational institutions appear to be very common in the developed countries of the world. The United States of America appears to have perfected these sources of income generation to such anextent that a huge sum of money is derived from them. According to Emenemu (2007), in the past, substantial grants were received from organisations like the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Ford Foundations, the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Services (DAD), the Canadian International Development Association (CIDA) among others. The oil boom in Nigeria appears to have denied Nigeria some assistance they were getting from some of these donor agencies in the past. This is because, Nigeria is not regarded as a poor nation in terms of resources, but some of these agencies identified Nigeria as a country where abundant resources are mismanaged. In Nigeria, there are philanthropists that have either donated physical
facilities or endowed professorial chairs in some Nigerian universities.
3.4.3.3 Education Tax Fund (ETF)
The Education Tax Fund is an initiative of the Federal Government towards the funding of education in Nigeria. According to Ade-Ajayi (2001), the Education Tax Fund was originally proposed by the Committee of Vice Chancellors of the Federal Universities for the exclusive funding of the universities, but the initiative was hijacked by
the Federal Government which now led to the inclusion of all other levels of education inclusive of tertiary institutions. The Education Tax Fund was established through the Education Tax Fund Decree Number 7 of 1993 which compelled companies operating in Nigeria, which have up to 100 employees on their pay roll to contribute 2% of their pre-tax earnings in any one year to the Education Tax Fund for the funding of education. While Education Tax Fund has improved the provision of physical facilities through the construction and rehabilitation of new classroom blocks, hostels, staff office complexes, laboratories among
others, the demand of these universities remains unabated.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
i. With specific examples, describe the mode of education financing at the tertiary level of the Nigerian educational system 3.5 Major Forms of External Aid in Nigeria at Independence
External aid usually takes two main forms: the extension of loans or grants for specific purposes, and ‘technical assistance' which includes
the supply of personnel and equipment and the training of Nigerians abroad, mainly in the donor countries. During the period between 1960 and 1965, Nigeria did not receive loans for specific educational projects, as the first International Development Association (IDA) credit of this kind was still under negotiation with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) at the end of 1964.
However, a credit from IDA worth $20 million was approved for secondary education and signed on March 1, 1965.
The external aid received by Nigeria can be classified as follows: (a) capital grants for building and equipment of educational establishments;
(b) supply of school equipment; (c) supply of teaching and administrative staff; (d) services rendered under general technical assistance programmes, such as (i) administration and educational planning, (ii) educational research, (iii) organisation of training courses for teachers, school administrators and supervisors, and (iv) organisation of conferences and seminars; (e) award of scholarships, fellowships, bursaries and visitorships tenable abroad.
Most agencies sponsored specific educational projects through
agreements with the Nigerian government in which the contribution of both sides was fixed in advance in accordance with a plan of operation.In some cases, more than one agency participated in a single project.
Scholarships were awarded under a single national scheme or under separate schemes sponsored by different national organisations and the
number available for each scheme was set year by year. A certain co- ordination of the aid given by the most important agencies operating in
Nigeria was undertaken by the Bureau for External Aid for Education,' a unit sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation and attached to the Federal Ministry of Education. Our discussion in this unit will only be limited to the major external agencies for which it has been possible to
access information during review of relevant literature.
3.5.1 Major External Aid Projects for the Operation of