APPRAISAL OF BUDGETARY PRACTICES IN GRANT-AIDED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NORTH CENTRAL, NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The importance of effective budgetary practices at all levels of economy has
for long been the major concern of many educationists, economists and
politicians. This is because effective budgetary practices reflect the focus of
administrators’ expenditure and revenue for major development in any financial
year. Aguba (2009) believed that a budget is a financial blue print for the
operation of organization, including the school system, for the fiscal year. In
consonance with this, Ogbonnaya (2005) defined a budget as the financial
statement of the proposed expenditure and expected revenue of the government,
public corporations, or educational institutions for a particular period of time.
Budget, therefore is an itemized summary of estimated or intended
expenditures for a given period along with proposals for financing organizational
programmes necessary for the attainment of pre-determined objectives. Budget
is expected to control wastage and extravagant spending in grant-aided
secondary schools.

School budget is an established financial standard needed to consciously
guide the activities of a school administrator towards the attainment of the aims
and objectives of the school in a given fiscal year (Ayodele, 2006). This position
is in line with the United States General Accounting office report in 1998 when
it asserted that school budgeting had historically been the process of balancing
expenditure with revenue to effect changes in spending, a process policy makers