A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF COSTS AND BENEFITS OF PUBLIC SECONDARY EDUCATION IN EDUCATION DISTRICT V SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

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Introduction

1.1 Background to the Study

The concept of education as a productive investment in human skills, knowledge, and capabilities has been in the literature since the first evaluative studies about fifty years ago. Education and secondary education in particular has been increasingly recognized to play a crucial role in the growth of national income individual earnings, political, technological and social development of any nation.

In today’s globalized and knowledge based economy, greater value and higher priority are placed on the production and distribution of knowledge as the prerequisite for economic growth and development. Education generally is the major source of providing and increasing the human capital needed for the knowledge production. Education has been defined in various form by different scholars. Omokhodion and Dosunmu (2000) define education as deliberate and directional human endeavour which can lead to the provision of positive learning experiences. They also stressed that experience gained by the learner from the input of education prepares him to be useful to both the society and themselves.

Olaniyonu, Adekoya and Gbenu (2008) sees education as a continuous process in life. It begins from one’s birth to death. It starts from homes and continues even after school to adulthood.

According to Adeyinka and Kayode (1996) the general purpose of education is to enable the individual to fix himself up in the society unto which he has been born to live, to enable him explore the world and find his own place in it, to enable him develop his potentials to the full so that he could acquire knowledge and training in a profession and so earn a good living.

In Nigeria, the broad aims of secondary education as contained in the National Policy on Education are preparation for useful living within the society, and preparation for higher education. (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2004).

Secondary education is a form of education which is very important and essential in Nigeria. Without this education, it is impossible to acquire higher education in Nigeria.

Education is believed to have economic value which is enhanced by a well educated, highly skilled and qualified workforce. For these reasons, governments all over the world including the Nigerian government are providing more education to its citizens either free or at highly subsided rates. This investment is comprised of the direct costs of education and the earnings foregone while the individual is in school.

The provision for education particularly secondary education either by the government or by the individual parents involve huge financial resources. These financial investments in secondary education particularly by the government reflects commitment and the importance attached to education compared with other spending priorities such as health, agriculture, defence etc which is usually determined by the proportion of government budget in relation to the Gross Domestic Product.

The socio economic rationale for providing secondary education especially in developing countries is the Cost Benefit Analysis of the investment in secondary education. Generally, given limited investible funds, cost Benefit Analysis is the method of evaluating the growth / net economic impact of public projects involving public expenditure. It is founded in the concept of rationality in that it involves rational decision making that weighs the pros and cons of any chosen option based on the clearly stated objective, economic value of the project and ranks alternative investments in term of their objective functions (profits, social benefits etc) and then considers investments that will yield optimum results. Hence, the purpose of Cost Benefit Analysis is to determine whether a project is desirable from the social welfare point of view by determining the financial feasibility and economic performance of projects. This serves as the basis for justification of the investments.

Also, cost Benefit Analysis as an investment appraisal method is a marginal analysis which provides the conceptual framework for examining the costs and the benefits of investment in terms of how, when and where the project/ activity should be carried out.

With regards to educational investments, Cost Benefit Analysis emphasizes the importance of determining the viability of any investment before it is made. It is widely acknowledged that, in the education sector, particularly secondary education, investment decisions as to the amount and type of education to demand and invest in, is taken either by the individuals parents, government or the society at large.

Every of these levels in the matrix considers their own costs and benefits as a prelude to opting in or out of the venture. Since education particularly secondary education is of great economic significance to governments and their citizens, with limited available resources at the disposal of policy makers in the education industry and with investment decisions to be made by both the individuals and governments, it is necessary that efforts should be made to find out the yield or benefits derivable from investments in secondary education. It is against this background that this study intend to analyze costs and benefits of secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State with a view to determining the economic profitability.

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1.2 Statement of the Problem

Secondary education in Nigeria is very important because without it one cannot further his or her education. The government both at federal and state levels are investing huge sums of money into this type of education with the hope that it will benefit its citizens and the economy so also is the private individuals. On the other hand, parents and the individuals are increasingly demanding for more of this type of education with the aim of creating a prosperous family in the future. Hence the place of education as a profitable investment cannot be over estimated. It is therefore necessary to find out the profits that are expected from investment in secondary education. This study is expected to find out the extent to which the social cost of secondary education varies with the social benefits and the extent to which private cost of secondary educations varies with the private benefits.

The study therefore is an attempt in answering the following questions.

1. How can the investment in secondary education be justified?
2. Will the social benefits for secondary education increase with the increase in social cost?
3. Will the private benefits of secondary education increase with increase in private costs?

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1.3 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to:

1. Examine the extent to which the social cost of secondary education in education District V of Lagos State Vary with their private costs.
2. Examine the extent to which the social benefits of secondary education in Education District V of Lagos state vary with their private benefits.
3. Compare the costs and benefits of educating the male and female students in secondary schools in Education District V of Lagos State.
4. Examine the extent to which the private return to secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State vary with the social returns.

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1.4 Research Questions

The following are the research questions for this study.

1. Is there any significant difference between the social costs and private costs of secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State.
2. Is there any significant difference between the social benefits and private benefits of secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State?
3. Is there any significant difference in the private cost of educating the male and the female students in secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State.
4. Is there any significant difference in the private benefit of educating the male and the female students in secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State?

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1.5 Research Hypotheses

The following hypotheses served as guide for this study

1. There is no significant difference between the social costs and private costs of secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State.
2. There is no significant difference between the social benefits and private benefits of secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State.
3. There is no significant difference in the private cost of educating the male and female students in secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State
4. There is no significant difference in the private benefits of educating the male and the female students in secondary education in Education District V of Lagos State.

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1.6 Significance of the Study

The study will provide an insight for government, school authorities and education managers to encourage individual to consider secondary education as a preparatory stage to higher education and not a terminal course.

The study will encourage government (Federal and State) to ensure adequate funding of secondary education.

The study will encourage policy makers to make policy decisions with regards to teacher cost per student as the importance of this direct social component cannot be over estimated.

Furthermore, the study will encourage the government on the use of cost benefit analysis as an investment appraisal tool in our education system as this can provide the needed signal to direction of resources allocation.

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1.7 Scope of the Study

This study was limited in scope to randomly selected public senior secondary schools in Education district V of Lagos State this study did not extend to ministry of Education. This study investigated the cost of secondary education in selected public senior secondary schools in Education District V of Lagos State. This study did not consider privately owned secondary schools in Education District V of Lagos State.

This study also investigated the benefit /returns to investment in secondary education in the public and private sectors of education District V of Lagos State using the age education earnings profile of workers with secondary school qualification.

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1.8 Limitation of the Study

The study was limited by the difficulty of obtaining accurate data on the cost of secondary education especially the social cost as most of the Administrator of the schools were not able to release all needed information for fear of being probed. The students on the other hard, were not able to state accurately the private cost of their education.

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1.9 Operational Definition Of Terms

Operational definition of terms used in this study were as follow:

Benefit:

All positive outcomes of consequence (quantifiable and non quantifiable) that result from actions of secondary education.

Cost:

The value of resources that are used up to develop implement and operate the secondary education programme being analyzed.

Cost Benefit Analysis:

The relationship between the cost of investing in secondary education and the value of the benefit that results from secondary education.

Direct Private Costs:

All costs incurred by the individual or their parents on educational expenses e.g school fees poaches of book etc.

Indirect Private Costs:

Income foregone (opportunity cost) after tax by the individual while studying on full time basis. Director social costs. All costs incurred by the government in providing secondary education to its citizens. For example teaching and non-teaching staff salaries and allowances, expenditures on stationeries etc.

Indirect Returns / Benefits:

All quantifiable and non-quantifiable rewards accruable to school certificate holders..

Social Returns / Benefits:

All quantifiable and non quantifiable rewards accruable to the society were school certificate holder reside and works.

Investment:

Capital committed into acquiring secondary education with a view to profiting later.

Secondary Education:

The type of education acquired by individual after successful completing the primary school education.

Age − earning Profile:

Stream of income over the working life time of the individual.

Wastages:

Extra quantifiable years spent by secondary school certificate holders before leaving the school.

Productivity:

A measure of economic efficiency which shows how inputs in secondary education are being converted into output.

Earnings Foregone:

opportunity costs of employment to the individual who chose to engage in an educational endeavor.

Gross Domestic Product:

Total Value of all goods and services produced in a country in a particular year.