Project Abstract

The important of Education in national development cannot be overemphasized hence its cardinal position in various objectives of most developing countries. In Nigeria over the years, elements of uncertainty have beclouded this sector both in nominal and real terms. Incessant strikes, closure of schools and other vices account for poor quality teaching and quality of products. The objective of this study is to examine the profile of Educational Expenditure in Nigeria (1966-2013).The data presented was collected primarily from the federal ministry of Education and can also be found in central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical Bulletin 2013 appendix A, it will be analyzed using SPSS (statistical package for social science) and the result also will be used to forecast future expenditure on Education. The study findings dwelt upon various problems, based on this finding recommendation are made, adequate planning of funding the Nigerian Education should be made ahead of time and actual budgetary expenditure should be backed by fund release and other sources of financing Education should be encouraged. The fact remains that higher education in Nigerian has been experiencing loss of facility, deterioration of equipment and plans, and uncompleted projects as a result of finical crises facing the system. When all these pressures are obvious, less increase in efficiency and pronouncing and diminish quality and output (i.e. teaching, scholarship and service, diminished working and living condition for professional staffs and students alike). Other contributory factors to the under-funding of Nigerian universities include lack of adequate planning.

Project Overview

1.0  INTRODUCTION1.1  BACKGROUND OF STUDYIt is widely accepted that education creates improved citizens and helps to upgrade the general standard of living in a society. Therefore, a positive social change is likely to be associated with the production of qualitative citizenry. It would seems to follow naturally that if more individuals are educated, the wealth of the nations will rise, since more education attracts higher wages and aggregative higher nation income and if there are positive externalities of education, national income would increase by even more than the sum of the individuals benefits.  An inquiry into the fiscal operations and development of Nigeria revealed that federal government expenditure on education is categorized under the social and community services sector. The implication is that education is an impure good.[Orubu,1989].The important of education is reminiscent in its role as a means of understanding, controlling, altering and redesigning of human environment [C.B.N 2000]. Education also improves health, productivity and access to paid employment [Anyanwu et al. 1999]. Education has a link with economic development. As once remarks by Ola [1998; 14] ‘’if you see any economic that is not doing well, find out what is spent on education’’.psacharopoulos[1973]Combs [1985] and Aborubo [1999] have all revealed that increase in national income and per capita income is a function of education and that differences among nations can better be explained by differences in the endowment of human, rather than physical capital. The underscores the reason why the Asian tigers in the past three decades allocated between 25-35% of their annually budgets to their education sector [Aboubo, 1999:61] in most developing countries improving the widens access to education especially basic education is a cardinal objective of their government. Education is seen as a right and responsibility to be guaranteed to all generations.[Anyanwu et al; 1999].  The increasing faith in education as an agent of change in many developing countries including Nigeria has held to a heavy investment in it, and thus the delegation of manpower development to the schools. The pressure from developing countries that undoubtedly been helped by public perception of financial reward from pursuing such education.1.2  STATEMENT OF PROBLEMNigeria education is currently in crises. There is less money to spend on secondary, tertiary education and primary education. Education sector complains of under-funding while the government accuses the sector of inefficient Revitalization of African higher Education utilization of available resources. The donors argue that public spending on education should be reduced.At the same time there is growing changes at the educational level. Moreover, there are increasing complains about poor standard of education at a period when globalization demands much from the educational system in terms of preparation of skillful labor force.1.3   AIMS AND OBJECTIVES1.           The objective of this study is to examine the profile of educational expenditure in Nigeria for the period of 1966-2013.2.           To investigate the variation present in the data within the period under review.3.           To recommend to the government on the better way of their budget on education.4.           To predict and forecast for the future Expenditure of government on education.1.4  SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDYThe project work, should by the end of the study of reveal the following.1.           The future of expenditure will be known, thereby giving them advantages to plan better.2.           It will service as an advantages to individuals and corporate bodies.3.           To show the variation present in the data within the period under investigation and study.1.5  SCOPE OF STUDYThis is limited to the data collected from the C.B.N. statistical bulletin over the period of 1966-2013.1.6   RESEARCH QUESTIONThe questions for this research are as follows;What was disbursed to the education sector between 1966-2013?1.           What was the total federal allocation to education between 1966-2013?2.           Is there any variation present in the data?1.7   LIMITATION OF STUDY2.           There were much financial constrain during the cause of the execution of this project work.3.           Collection of data from the federal ministry of education was not easy due to official bottle necks in the organization. 1.8. DEFINITION OF TERMS1. Education: Education is the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment and it is also an enlightens experience. 2. Times series: Time series is an ordered sequence of values of a variable at equally spaced time intervals, it occurs frequently when looking at industrial data.3. Forecasting: prediction of future events and conditions are called forecast, and the act of making such prediction is called forecasting.4. Time plot: There are basically four components of time series data long term trend, circular, seasonal variation. To identify these components we need to plot the time series graph known as time plot or histogram, it is a graph that plot the time series against its time period.5. Additive model: This comes to play when the variation in time series data are of the same equal band width it is useful where the variation or movement around the trend are constant over a period of time.6. De-seasonalization: this is the process of removing the effect of seasons from the time series data.7. Scatter Diagram: This is obtained by plotting the time series data in the co-ordinate manner, the values of the independent variables are called along x-axis and that of the dependent variables y are scaled along the y -axis8. Freehand method: These methods consist of fitting trend line on the time plot [graph] through mere looking at the points on the graph. However this approach has obvious disadvantage since it depends much on human eye judgment.9. Moving Average method: this is the method of estimating the trend value by using the moving average of appropriate order.10. Semi-Average method : this consist of separating the data into two parts [preferably equal parts] and averaging the data in each part this obtaining low points on the graph of the time series.11. Auto- correlation: Auto-correlation is a simple autocorrelation coefficient which measures the correlation between observations at different distance apart.12. Outliers: Outliers are data different from the entire data i.e data executed from the entire data.13. Time Series Analysis: Time series analysis is a set of order observations of quantitative variables taken at successive point of time; the period can be daily, weekly, etc.14. Least square: the method of least squares is a standard approach in regression analysis to the approximate solution of over determined systems it is use in data fitting.15. Data: is a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables, restated piece of data are individual piece of information. Data as a general concept refers to the fact that some existing information or knowledge is represented or coded in some form suitable for better usage or processing.