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The Problems Of Local Government Autonomy And Its Implications In The Effective Management Of Primary Schools
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
In the
world over, education has become an essential commodity that determines
the level of development or growth of any nation. It has become services
that require the involvement of both the private and public sectors.
The involvement of governments in education cut across all levels i.e.,
the primary, secondary and tertiary education. Basically, in Nigeria,
local government has constitutional responsibility in primary education,
while the state and federal government also has their responsibilities
to perform succinctly in all levels of education. The three tiers of
governments in Nigeria, needs to adequately address the issue of
infrastructure, enrolment, planning and finance of primary education in
other to achieve the cardinal objectives of primary education (Igidi,
2009).
Over the years, local and state government has constituted the
real actors in Nigeria primary education especially in public service
delivery. This is not farfetched from the fact that primary education
remains primordial for every citizen, and it must be accessible to every
citizens and local government serves as veritable instrument to social
and economic development of the people at the grassroots. The 1976 Local
Government Reforms in Nigeria gave the three-tier of government the
onus for provision and maintenance of primary education. Local
government is a government that is formed at the local level. It is a
form of community government, so community development is its primary
responsibility.The United Nations Office for Public Administration
defines Local Government as “a political subdivision of a nation or (in a
federal system) State, which is constituted by law and has substantial
control of Local affairs including the powers to impose taxes or to
exact labour for prescribed purposes. The governing body of such an
entity is elected. The 1976 local government reform defines it as
“government at local level exercised through representative council
established by law to exercise specific powers within defined areasâ€.
These powers should give the Council substantial control over local
affairs as well as the staff and institutional and financial powers to
initiate and direct the provision of services and to determine and
implement projects so as to complement the activities of the State and
Federal governments in their areas, and to ensure, through devolution of
these functions to these councils and through the active participation
of the people and their traditional institutions, that local initiative
and response to local needs and conditions are maximized.
Howbeit,
the present 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria also
stipulated that the Local Government should also embark on the provision
and maintenance of primary, adult and vocational education in relation
with State government. This is one of the cardinal areas where the state
governments relate with local governments in the areas of education as
service delivery. Lack of coordination among these tiers of government
on strategic planning and budgeting has constituted a complication which
most of the time resulted to duplication of functions, especially in
providing some amenities to primary schools. ESSPIN (2009) similarly
reported that duplication of effort and funding, lack of consensus
between the different actors in primary education has brought about the
inefficiencies experiencing in the sector.
1.2 Statement of the problem
Fiscal
autonomy in local governments is generally believed to be the best tool
for effective and efficient service delivery in rural areas of
federated countries like Nigeria. In other words, with adequate funding,
due process and accountability (devoid of excessive control by higher
authorities – federal and or state government), local governments stand
to serve best in the provision of basic social amenities like portable
water, electricity, education, health-care service, recreational
facilities to their respective communities. Despite the fact that the
constitution has delegated the above responsibilities to local
governments, they have not been able to carry them out effectively due
to intervention from other levels of government as stated by Anyanwu
(2021). Lack of autonomy, inadequate planning, weak policy execution,
insufficient revenue, corruption and mismanagement, a lack of adequate
manpower, are all the challenges impeding local government efficiency in
service delivery especially at primary education level. On the
interference of State Government on Local affair, David (2019) opined
that constitutionally, local government have responsibilities to
discharge concerning primary education, but practically, it is State
Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) who manage schools through Local
Government Education Authority (LGEA) with little or no consultation to
local government council, regardless of their huge contributions to
primary education in Nigeria hence the implication on primary education
deepens. Although there are scattered literature on Fiscal autonomy and
intergovernmental relation non has focused on how lack of autonomy
affect local government administration on primary education which
necessitated for the study.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The broad objective of this study is to examine the problems of local government autonomy and its implications in the effective management of Primary schools.The study adopted a qualitative descriptive approach. It implore one of the traditional methods of gathering information, i.e. the secondary sources of data. A sizeable percentage of secondary sources that is used came from published and unpublished works which include materials extracted from: Archives, Newspapers, discussions, Conference ... Continue reading---
