CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The importance of effective budgetary practices at all levels of economy hasfor long been the major concern of many educationists, economists andpoliticians. This is because effective budgetary practices reflect the focus ofadministrators’ expenditure and revenue for major development in any financialyear. Aguba (2009) believed that a budget is a financial blue print for theoperation of organization, including the school system, for the fiscal year. Inconsonance with this, Ogbonnaya (2005) defined a budget as the financialstatement 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 intendedexpenditures for a given period along with proposals for financing organizationalprogrammes necessary for the attainment of pre-determined objectives. Budgetis expected to control wastage and extravagant spending in grant-aidedsecondary schools.

School budget is an established financial standard needed to consciouslyguide the activities of a school administrator towards the attainment of the aimsand objectives of the school in a given fiscal year (Ayodele, 2006). This positionis in line with the United States General Accounting office report in 1998 whenit asserted that school budgeting had historically been the process of balancingexpenditure with revenue to effect changes in spending, a process policy makers16