ABSTRACT
The study was designed to examine the comparison of social and private cost and benefit of public secondary education in Education District V public Senior Secondary school in Lagos State. The purpose of the study was to find out the extent to which private and social costs vary with private and social benefits at secondary level of education.
The population consisted of all the senior secondary school students in 65 public senior secondary schools. The sample used for the study consisted of 20 public senior secondary schools, which was 30% of the total population 5 senior secondary schools were randomly selected though simple random sampling. In each school, 30 students were selected. Therefore, a total of 600 students and 600 workers srved as the sample for the study.
The data collected were used to test four research hypotheses stated using the t-test analysis.
The following conclusion was reached based on the result of findings of the study:
There is a significant difference between the social cost and private costs of secondary education in Lagos State.
There is no significant difference between the social benefit and private benefit of secondary education in Lagos State.
There is a significant difference between the private cost of educating the male female students in secondary education in Lagos State.
Also, there is a significant difference in the private benefit of educating the male and female students in secondary education in Lagos state.
Finally, recommendations were offered based on the result of findings form the study.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1Background 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.
1.2Statement 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?