BUDGETARY ALLOCATION, RESOURCE FACTORS AND QUALITY OF GRADUATES IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN OYO AND LAGOS STATES, NIGERIA

Abstract

Reports have shown that Quality of Graduates of Public Universities (QGPU), the ability of graduates to display employability skills and intellectual capability, was adjudged to be low in Nigeria. This has become a great concern to stakeholders. Literature has attributed the low QGPU to poor funding and inadequate resources with less emphasis on resource factors (accountability, utilisation, monitoring, reporting and control). This study, therefore, was carried out to investigate the influence of Budgetary Allocation (BA) and resource factors on QGPU in Oyo and Lagos states, Nigeria. The Input-Output Model provided the framework, while the descriptive survey design was adopted. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used. Universities in Lagos and Oyo states were stratified based on ownership (state and federal), and one university was selected randomly from each stratum. Thirty-three heads of department and 47 lecturers were randomly selected from all the faculties in the universities. Twenty employers of labour (Ministries of Education, Science and Technology, Agriculture, Rural Development, Finance, Environmental, Health, Justice, Information and Works), and companies consisting of (Tetra park, Fri-goglass, Nicapaco, Zinox, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Nestle, MTN, Airtel and First Bank) participated in the study. One thousand graduates of the selected universities (50 per company) were purposively sampled, while 472 postgraduate students in 2009/2010-2013/2014 academic session were randomly selected. The directors of academic planning and bursars of the universities were enumerated. The BA Checklist (r=0.90), Accountability (r=0.86), Utilisation (r=0.84), Monitoring (r=0.87), Reporting and Control (r=0.80) and Employability rating (r=0.72) scales were used for data collection. Key informant interview sessions were held with 10 directors and 10 employers of higher degree graduates. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation and Multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance, while qualitative data were content analysed. The BA shortfall in (budget and actual) was 54.5% in University of Ibadan and 6.5% in Lagos State University between 2009 and 2014. Graduates’ classes of degree were: Pass (3.0%), Third Class (22.0%), Second Class Lower (54.0%), Second Class Upper (20.0%) and First Class (2.0%). Graduate employability skills: communication (3.30), numeracy (2.70), analytical (2.90), problem solving (3.10), manipulative (3.00) and decision-making (3.00) were high against the threshold of 2.80. Resource accountability (r=0.70), utilisation (r=0.66), monitoring (r=0.82), reporting and vii control (r=0.82) had significant relationships with QGPU. The independent variables jointly predicted the quality of graduates (F(4, 1570) = 170.57; Adj. R2 =0.98), accounting for 98.0% of its variance. Resource accountability (β=0.23), monitoring (β=0.40), reporting and control (β=0.38) contributed to QGPU, while utilisation did not. Resources were over-utilised, while there was non availability of basic learning materials and outright neglect of projects in the universities. Despite lower funding than state universities, the federal universities in Oyo and Lagos states produce higher quality graduates, due to financial monitoring, reporting and control. Resource monitoring and reporting and control units should be given priority to ensure proper management of the available resources especially in state universities.