CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Financing formal education in Nigeria has become an issue of public concern as a result of the present economic down turn and worldwide inflation. According to Central Bank of Nigeria (2003), poor financing has been the bane of Nigerian education system to the extent that the budgetary allocation has been very low. Furthermore, the federal government allocation to education has declined steadily since 1999 and is much lower than average in the last five years. This is particularly important in view of huge increase in number of intake at all levels of education primary, secondary schools and tertiary. Ajetomob and Ayanwale (2004) observed that one of the approaches government adopts in financing education in Nigeria is the annual budgetary allocation to the sector that are distributed as subvention or grants to the different levels of education the grants or subventions are made through respective education ministry of government by the coordinating agencies of education such as the National University Commission (NUC), National Commission for Colleges of Education (NABTEB), Secondary schools Education Management Board (SEMB) and Universal Basic Education
Commission. They went further to say that since the oil crisis in the eighties, the proportion of capital budget allocated to education has been consistently lower than the proportion of recurrent expenditure over the years, the government capital expenditure allocated to education as a percentage of total capital budgets ranged from as low as 1.7 percent in 1999 and not up to 9% in all case. Like total budget, the proportion was not consistent and this however, has retarded progresses in building facilities (Okunamiri, 2007). This view agrees with Moja (2000) when he asserts that building of classroom has not kept up with increased enrolment in all levels of Education in Nigeria. Worst affected are primary and secondary schoolsschools where classes are offered in the open air. In several secondary schoolsschools, as many as four classes are accommodated in one classroom and these are classes that are already over crowded and in poor state of repairs. In addition, laboratories and equipment are grossly inadequate and the attendant problems in terms of quality of education usually tell on the products (Ajetomobi&Ayanwale, 2004). Abdullahi (2003) stated:
“since independence there has been a consistent increasing demand for educational services in Nigeria. This demand arose as a result of population growth, increasing social demands (the desire to educate a good proportion of the population) and need for more skilled manpower in the country. The increasing demand on educational services means the establishment of more schools and provision of more teachers and materials. The result is that the burden of funding education in Nigeria, which rests mainly on the various tiers of government, is becoming unbearable. This fact is evident by the existence of numerous problems bedeviling the Education sector in the country. It is a foregone conclusion that in Nigeria with a population of over 100 million, a good percentage of which consists of young people, the funding of education can no longer be totally left in the hands of government (p:43)”
The scenario described above, particularly the rapid changes in the education sector since independence, depicts a state of chaos in the sector. The result is that numerous problems are easily discernible in the sector including the following:
1.    Poor infrastructural facilities in schools at all levels.
2.    Poor number and quality of teachers particularly at primary and secondary schools level
3.    Poor quality products (graduate) from schools at all levels.
4.    Loss of confidence by the general pubic in the sector.