Under-Funding Tertiary Education in Nigeria: Implication for Sustainable National Development

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of government underfunding of tertiary education for sustainable national development in Nigeria. Three research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The instrument for data collection was a secondary data from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) entitled “Value of Educational Growth, Gross Domestic Product, Capital Government Expenditure and Recurrent Government Expenditure in Nigeria, 1990-2013”. The period under-review was chosen for the purpose of comparing funding of education in selected World Bank sampled countries. The researcher adopted Ex-post Facto research design to evaluate government budgetary allocation to education and value of educational growth between 1990 to 2013. Correlation Martric and Square Regression (r²) and t-ratio statistics were used to analyze data collected. The findings showed that the value of educational growth, Gross Domestic Product, Current Government Expenditure and Regression Government Expenditure maintained increased trend and there was a positive relationship with a low productive value on education budget. This showed that expenditure on tertiary education is still below other countries under-review and below UNESCO recommended of 26% of total annual budgetary allocation. This has affected education development and programs of tertiary education in Nigeria. There is need for improved budgetary allocation to education in Nigeria to match other developing countries of Africa for greater attention to tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The study recommends that educational administrators and management of tertiary institutions in Nigeria should mount pressure on the political class to address the state of under-funding of education by government and implement UNESCO recommended 26% of annual budgetary allocation for suitable educational development.