SOURCES OF FUNDING EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this oeuvre is to thoroughly highlight the sources of funding Nigerian education by exposing its related concepts.
Keywords - Education, Funding, Government, Nigeria

INTRODUCTION
The three tiers of government is publicly seen and believed to be the collective-entity behind dishing out the exclusive service when it comes to education in Nigeria. Those who believed that the funding of education will be too cumbersome for government alone, agitated that there must be a paradigm shift to imbibe new core values that would align with other global realities of the rapid technological changes.
On funding of education, one makes bold to say that the federal government owes it a responsibility to co-ordinate things that would promote educational growth and development in the country. Education in Nigeria is often times viewed as an exclusive service of the government. It has always been the belief of the public that the funding of education is the sole responsibility of the three tiers of government. Those who believed that the funding of education will be too cumbersome for government alone, agitated that there must be a paradigm shift to imbibe new core values that would align with other global realities of the rapid technological changes.
Education in Nigeria is often times viewed as an exclusive service of the government. It has always been the belief of the public that the funding of education is the sole responsibility of the three tiers of government. Those who believed that the funding of education will be too cumbersome for government alone, agitated that there must be a paradigm shift to imbibe new core values that would align with other global realities of the rapid technological changes.
Educational policies are not often government based. It has to do with demand. The fact is that policies cannot take place without conflict which is the brain child for new educational policies. It is based on the will of the people and since the policy makers in education and other stakeholders are in the business of providing education, it is, therefore, necessary for both parties to join hands in funding education and should not be exclusively left in the hands of the government.
There is no amount of money that is enough to fund education in Nigeria neither is there no amount of money that is too much to fund education. There is the rising need to involve co-operate and other private organizations to partake in the funding of education as the task of funding education should be a collective responsibility by all stakeholders.

CONCEPT OF FINANCING EDUCATION
One major question about financing education is who should finance education? The argument has always been whether the cost of education should be borne by government or by individuals receiving education. There has been a lot of debate about cost of education especially on who should bear the cost. The debate can be crudely reduced to three groups. The first group is made up of those who argue that cost of education should be borne essentially by parents with government providing the enabling environment. They are of the view that education should be subjected to free market discipline. This group posits “that families and individuals ought to pay fees in order to access nominally available public services, otherwise these services would not be available or their quality would become unacceptably low.”The problem with the position of this group is that those who are poor will not be able to pay and they will be denied access. The second group argues that education is a right, which must be funded by government. They argue that there are enough resources in the world to fund at least basic education for all children. They posit that the problem is that of corruption, misplaced priority, inequality and poor policy choices. They argue that education should not only be free but also compulsory. They are of the view that government should bear all the costs because even if the direct costs of education are borne by government, the indirect costs (such as uniform, transport and school meals) may be beyond the capacity of the family while the opportunity cost may be impossible to bear. They argue that no right could exist without corresponding government obligation and that government is obliged to make education available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable. The third group while coming from the rights based approach like the second group posits that education is a right and government must not only endeavor to remove all the barriers to education but must also take steps to utilize to the maximum of its available resources to achieve progressively the full realisation of the right to education and other social and economic rights. They argue that there are three layers of obligations in matters of social and economic rights: obligations to respect, protect and fulfill.

Under international law, Nigeria have the obligation to use the maximum of her available resources to realise the right to education. Even when her resources are very limited, she is obliged to prioritise certain immediate obligations, such as the introduction of free primary education and to guarantee education for all without discrimination. She is also obliged to provide progressively free secondary and higher education and to continuously improve the quality of education. This means that she must take immediate and progressive steps to fully realise the right to education and must not take retrogressive measures.

An educational organisation is made up of different human and material resources that needs to be financially catered for in order to achieve the educational organisation set goals. Basically there are two very broad entities in charge of funding educational programs in Nigeria which are Governmental and Non-Governmental.

SOURCES OF FUNDING EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
Sources of funding educational organisations/institutions in Nigeria are avenues through which finance come into the educational system. These finances are used to maintain the educational (secondary school) system. These sources includes the following:
1. Parents Teachers Association (P.T.A.)
2. Use of Direct Labour
3. Payment for Extra Lesson
4. Proceeds from School Activities
5. Appeal Fund Raising
6. Community Involvement
7. Donation
8. Alumni
9. Non-Governmental Organisation
10. School Fees
11. International Organisations
12. School Activities
13. Community Effort
14. Alumni Contributions
15. Education Tax Fund (ETF)
16. Rentals
17. State Government Budgetary Allocation
18. Grants
19. Endowments/Donations
20. Local Government Activities
21. Government Agencies
22. Corporate Effort/Activities

1. PARENTS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION (P.T.A.)
The P.T.A. helps the state government in one way or the other in managing the affairs of the school. Normally, every students pay the termly levy of the P.T.A. which is managed by the school authority in conjuction with the P.T.A. officials. In many cases, this P.T.A. levy is used in providing P.T.A. teachers, some school facilities, and to make repairs. Apart from provision of both human and material resources, P.T.A. motivates both students and teachers by giving awards and scholarships to exceptional students and teachers. This goes a long way to encourage hard work and commitment in the school.

2. USE OF DIRECT LABOUR
The Chief Executive can make use of direct labour in carrying out school projects in order to reduce expenses instead of using contractors. This is a good source of financing education.

3. PAYMENT FOR EXTRA LESSON
School Principals could organise extra lessons for students after the official school hours. The proceeds could be used to do some works in the school by the school authority after compensating the teachers for their extra efforts.

4. PROCEEDS FROM SCHOOL ACTIVITIES
School activities represents another good source of funding education. They include such activities as sales of students hand craft, sales of books and stationeries, staging of school plays and raffles, sales of farm products from the school farm, funds raising activities can be organised by the school authorities where parents could be invited to raise money for school projects.

5. APPEAL FUND RAISING
The school authority could appeal in writing to wealthy persons in the community where the school is located for financial assistance in order to develop their school. This practice could yield promising results if well articulated.

6. COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
The school administrator cannot successfully run the school in isolation without the involvement of the community people. The community will help the school in carrying out its policies especially in the area of discipline and settlement of disputes involving both the students, staffs, and community. The community should be used to supply both free and cheap labour to the school if cordial relationship exist between the school and the community.

7. DONATION
A good school principal who has a good relationship with the community will be able to attract both financial and material donations from the people of the community where the school is located including scholarships., to his students. The principal should know when and how to organise fund raising in his school so as to get people's donations to his school.

8. ALUMNI
Effective use of the Old Students' Association (Alumni) by the school authority is always very helpful and healthy to the school. This association, normally, provides both cash and materials for the growth and development of their alma-mater. Every good school principal utilises this source to finance his school.

9. NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS (NGO)
Since the financing of education is a joint responsibility and involves the private sector, bringing an NGO which is an association registered under the societies registration act, public trust act, and the companies act with general body, executive, paid staff and volunteers, then a good school administrator must avail himself the opportunity of involving any of the NGOs in the state in funding his school in any form. Thus, every school principal should learn how to blow his trumpet and execute his school projects.

10. SCHOOL FEES
This is a source of financing education in Nigeria. Though tuition is free in all federal colleges and institutions, but for full time students in state and private institutions tuition is paid. Other components of school fees known as sundry & service charges include medical fees, examination fees, sport fees, and ID card fees.

11. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
International Organisations are external aids who gives assistance to educational institutions from outside the country. It may be in the form of equipment and manpower through bilateral and multilateral relations. External aids could come from organizations such as the world bank, UNESCO, USAID, Ford Foundation, PTF, (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), British Council, UNICEF, etc.

12. SCHOOL ACTIVITIES
A large portion of economic activities which are internally generated activities, for example farming, large scale activities, baking, etc help finance school activities. For example in the university of lagos, there is a dedicated bottled water producer within the school premises, affiliated with the University of Lagos called UNILAG water. Also, there is a bread manufacturer affiliated with the University of Lagos known as UNILAG bread. Also, institutions run part time programs to generate funds. This is referred to as an alternative source of educational funding. Activities like Inter-house sports, graduation ceremonies, founder's day, etc. do act as avenues to generate fund which is used to supplement other sources for financing education in Nigerian basic schools.

13. COMMUNITY EFFORTS
The leadership of some communities endeavour to bring education closer to theor people, hence, efforts are put in place to donate lands, blocks of classroom, chairs and tables, and in some cases, influential persons help to attract special grants from government and other agencies.

14. ALUMNI CONTRIBUTIONS
The effect put in place by old students of the educational institutions comes as alumni contribution. They meet from time-to-time and work hand-in-hand with school authorities. They identify significant projects and fund same.

15. EDUCATION TAX FUND (ETF)
Now known as Tertiary Education Tax Fund (TETFund). It was formally known as ETF (Education Tax Fund). It was introduced in 1993 to raise fund for the education sector. TETFund was established as an intervention agency under the TETFund ACT – Tertiary Education Trust Fund(Establishment, etc) Act, 2011; charged with the responsibility for managing, disbursing and monitoring the education tax to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The TETFund act requires all registered companies in Nigeria to pay a tax of 2% on their assessable profit. The money is shared in the ratio 50:25:25, with Universities getting 50% and colleges and polytechnics each getting 25% apiece.

16. RENTALS
Some staff quarters either built by the community effort or the state attract revenue through the rents paid by teachers but the amount derived from this source is usually insignificant. At the level of tertiary institutions such as the Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, such rentals also constitute internal revenue base.

17. STATE GOVERNMENT BUDGETARY ALLOCATION
Just like the federal government budgetary allocation, every state of the federation is expected to allocate money through the budget to be spent for education at the beginning of every financial year.

18. GRANTS
These are the sources of fund that comes through the government through budgeting allocation. Government provides allocation and funds for education through grants. Grants can be categorized into 3 groups which are:
I. Capital Grant: This is the bulk of payments to educational institutions for the construction of new buildings and major repair of old ones.
II. Recurrent Grant: These are for expenditure which occurs every year in the budget. They include salaries, allowance, maintenance, traveling and transport expenses, and expenditure on student meals and so on.
III. Special Grant: This is like an aid by the federal or state local government to the service school. Some government special grant enable schools improve the quality of education, structure special programs and much more. It should be noted that the grant is not meant for every school as it is only given after certain considerations. Grants for tertiary schools are usually received and disbursed by regulatory institutions such as NCCE, UBE,NBTE and so on.

19. ENDOWMENT/DONATIONS
Since endowment is the money given to schools, colleges, or any institution to provide it with income, thus, organisations and personalities in the society, sometimes, provide this kind of money which eventually acts as a source of finance for respective schools.

20. LOCAL GOVERMENT ACTIVITIES
Nigeria is made up of 774 local government areas which generate fund through taxes from traders, motor parks, abbattoirs, etc. Part of the monies generated are sometimes used to finance education at the local level.

21. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Government agencies like Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), which are specially set up for the purpose of education finance to finance education related activities, are also good source of finance for education in Nigeria.

22. CORPORATE EFFORT/ACTIVITIES
Bid corporate bodies in Nigeria like Central Bank, Niger Delta Development Commission, Oil Companies, etc. are veritable source of finance for education in Nigeria. Some of them actually sponsor building libraries and construction projects in schools.

CONCLUSION
Having gone through the sources of funding education in Nigeria, it is the belief of the writer that the government should not be the only epitome of source that needs to be watched; every other sources should be inculcated alongside the government to develop education in the country (Nigeria) for it's a joint responsibility.
Education is a huge capital venture. Annually, the educational sector is given some shares of the budget. A school needs huge sum of money to procure the necessary things for learning. No farmer does well in his farm without a cutlass and a good cutlass cannot be on hand without enough money. The performance of a School can be enhanced through proper funding if adequate funding is realised. It will be unfair to leave education funding to the government alone for not all schools are well funded.
There is no amount of money that is enough to fund education in Nigeria neither is there no amount of money that is too much to fund education. There is the rising need to involve co-operate and other private organizations to partake in the funding of education as the task of funding education should be a collective responsibility by all stakeholders and not the government alone.

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Oshemughen H.O. (2016). Fundamentals of Educational Administration, Planning, and Supervision for Tertiary Educational Institutions. Warri: COEWA Publishers

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