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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the Study

Education in a broad sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. Technically, education is the process by which the society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another (Olelewe and Amaka, 2011).The educational system in Nigeria is classified essentially into primary, secondary and tertiary levels with the philosophy aimed at development of an individual into a sound and effective citizen, integration of the individual into the community and provision of equal access to educational opportunities for all citizens of the country at primary, secondary and tertiary levels (FGN, 2004).

Interest in the study of how resources are allocated at variety of levels within educational system grew rapidly during the 1970’s and 1980’s (Adeleke, 1994). According to Adeleke, the desire to learn more about the internal allocation of resources for education has not been limited to decentralization of the schooling systems such as in the United States, Canada and Nigeria. Even in highly centralized school governance systems, considerable variation exists at local levels on how educational resources are ultimately distributed and utilized. Studies have began to examine these internal distribution practices in wide variety of nations around the world (Allenson, 2000).

Otis (1997) states that in Nigeria, the early work on education resources allocation dates back from the early twentieth century and this focused on the availability, apportionment and utilization of the resources among constituent local Education Agencies or Authorities.

The distribution and utilization of education resources witness challenges such as how much resources are allocated to various schools, how has the population of the schools commensurate with the resources allocated to them. There is interest on what happens to the resources allocated for distribution to various educational levels of primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Also, there is an interest on the type of programmes run by the schools and the type of students admitted. These determine to a large extent whether the resources allocated to the schools are well utilized or not (Anyamele, 2001).

According to Obadina (1998), there is the desire to learn more about what educational managers do with the resources allocated to their schools. Also there is the desire to learn more about these internal resources allocation.

According to Uzoma (1994), the budget allocation for education is nothing to write home about, a situation where less than 10 per cent of fiscal allocation is given to education, a sector that requires enormous or huge expenditure. This has resulted in low salary structure of teachers, lack of full remuneration by teachers and even the standard of education in the country has been affected.

Another problem of distribution and utilization of educational resources is the corrupt practices of the managers of the resources and their lack of vision and misplaced priorities they give to certain areas of education sector which ought not to be so.

Research examining inequalities within schools is hardly new. Analysis such as Abel (1999) for years has been concerned with the phenomena such as the tracking of students by academic specialization or the grouping of students for instructional purposes. According to them, there have been studies of high school tracking where findings suggest that students assigned to the non-academic track are seriously discriminated against. There have also been studies of instructional grouping where the findings reveal substantial inequalities in the amount and character of the instructional resources that are supplied (Breaben and Oakes, 1991).

Availability of educational resources such as time, information, money, material and human capacity makes a school environment conducive to teaching and learning. The availability of educational resources is very important because of its role in the attainment of educational objectives and goal. The extent to which an educational institution attains her objectives is directly proportional to the educational resources available and their utilization. According to Agabi (2010), educational resources can be categorized into four namely human, material, physical and financial resources.

Human resources in education are the students, teaching staff, non- teaching staff, bursar, librarian, laboratory attendants, clerks, messengers, mail runners, gatekeepers, gardeners and cooks as well as educational planners and administrators (Ebong, 1999). Material resources include textbooks, charts, maps, audio-visual and electronic instructional materials such as computer, multimedia, internet connectivity, radio, tape recorder, television and video tape recorder. Other category of material resources consist of consumables in form of paper supplies and writing materials such as biro, eraser, exercise books, crayon, chalk, drawing books, notebooks, pencil, ruler, slate, etc.

Physical resources include school plant such as classrooms, lecture theatres, auditoriums, typing pools, administrative block, libraries, laboratories, workshops, gymnasia, assembly halls, special rooms like sickbay, staff quarters, students’ hostels, kitchen, cafeteria, lavatory, etc while financial resources are the monetary inputs available for and expended on the education system. These include financial allocation to education in form of government grants, PTA levies, and donations from philanthropists and internally generated revenues (IGRs). The importance of educational resources cannot be over emphasized. Functional literacy will continue to elude us without some level of relevant resources available.

Utilization according to Ngurukwem (2005) is the proportion of the available time a system is operating. In terms of educational resources, it could refer to the extent of available resources that are put to use. It therefore becomes imperative that distribution, availability and adequate utilization of educational resources such as human, material, physical and financial in some rural communities of Lagos State be explored to determine their applications for knowledge delivery. This study among other things will treat the availability, distribution and utilization of resources to various levels in the state and federal government owned schools.

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