Global Trends in Government Policies on Funding of Primary Education: Lesson for Nigeria

This paper analyzed trends in government policies regarding funding primary education and used Nigeria’s Universal Basic Education (UBE) policy as a case study, comparing it with other countries. This research proposition was based on the Human Capital Theory. Exploratory qualitative research was used in this study to analyze secondary data collected from various sources. The paper described the Nigeria UBE policy to increase school enrollment as being effective in achieving the policy objectives where school enrollment had been prompted noticeably in the urban centres notwithstanding the numerous barriers to the successful implementation of the Nigerian UBE policy. Also, inadequate and inconsistent funding, poor school infrastructure, and few competent teachers were found to hinder the full realization of the UBE policy in the identified areas. This is even though Nigeria has one of the youngest populations in the world; it has been established that the country only spends a little over 6% of its current national budget on education which is far less than UNESCO’s recommended baseline of 15 – 20%. Furthermore, there was observed ethnic and regional differentiation in educational opportunities, and it was revealed that education remained insecure in Northern Nigeria due to cultural, economic and security factors. The paper also revealed that aid has served an important purpose in plugging the gap in education financing in most developing nations. Taking into consideration the results of the study, the following recommendations are proposed for educational expenditure in Nigeria. There is a need to enhance the national budget allocation to education to meet the international benchmark and ensure more complementary distribution of resources especially in the rural areas. There was also a suggestion that the Nigerian government should fund teacher training projects and undertake renovations of schools to boost the standard of education.