CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTIONBackground of the StudyOne of the most serious setback to educational development inNigeria is none availability of data or lack of authenticity where availableNwagwu, 2003). In the blue print put forward by the implementationcommittee on the National Policy on Education (2004) it was noted that:Difficulties are encountered in Nigeria in obtaining such basic data likethe population of students, the population of teachers, the number ofinstructional materials available in schools, tile number of school buildingto be renovated and many others (lgwe, 2004). The state ministries ofeducation lack accurate data which affects its policies and programmesand this is as a result of fabricated data supplied to the ministry by theschool head teachers (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004). According toIkpe (2002), statistical data on educational expenditure are not alwaysavailable and if available, they do not give a sufficient breakdown tomake the data valuable for most planning purposes in the ministry ofeducation. Uyanga (1993), opined that educational planners all over thedeveloped economics of the world, sets future educational target based onobjectives identification, peoples aspiration, problems of the society,needs and gaps in the field of education. This is made possible through acareful examination of the past and present efforts of stakeholders in12education. In the absence of data, the said examination degenerates into“the rule of thumb”. Aghenta (2000), put it (hat most data obtained fromhead teachers are not factual but ambiguous, they are not accessible ondemand and this has caused failures in some programmes carried out bythe government. The administrators of the current Universal BasicEducation (UBE) programme needs accurate data to be able to plan,organize and administer the programmes effectively. They are bound totake various decisions which should he useful to the children, schoolsystem and the society. This is decision sometimes becomes impossiblein the context of accurate data. From the above observation it isimperative that there is need for data management awareness to the headteachers who are the custodians of data in their various schools inNigeria.Data are simply referred to as statistics. Data are numericalmeasures of phenomena and they are used in the process of scientificdecision making.