Abstract

One major way capable of turning out nation building-task-oriented minds is by proper and adequate funding of tertiary education. The federal government grants subventions for recurrent expenditures to federal tertiary institutions and provides funds for special capital projects. The tertiary institutions are, in addition, expected to generate funds from internal and alternative external sources. This necessitates Education Trust Fund (ETF) intervention in support projects in the universities as one of such alternative external sources. The objective of this paper was to examine the impact of ETF on tertiary education and economic growth in Nigeria. On theoretical level, the study draws some comparison from selected African countries. On empirical frontier, the study empirically examines the impact of ETF on tertiary education and economic growth in Nigeria in the past decade of private sector initiative in tertiary education in Nigeria. The study employed empirical statistical analysis technique. The major tool of empirical analysis was a multiple regression model. The study considered graduate turnout at various degrees, university enrolment, employment in industries and businesses and ETF-sponsored support projects in the universities, all as indicators of the level of funding of tertiary education, which are perceived to have a link with economic growth. A model was developed to capture the functional relationship between the two sets of variables, enhance empirical analysis and drive achievement of study objective. The model is estimated and evaluated vis-à-vis a priori expectations and relevant statistics. The result showed that, at 0.05 level of significance and 6 degree of freedom, while graduate turnout and employment in industries and businesses respectively exerted statistically significant positive impact on economic, enrolment and ETF allocations to universities respectively exerted negative but statistically insignificant impact. Perhaps, the negative impact could be in the immediate period; indirectly it could translate to positive impact in the ‘medium- and long-run’ through graduate output. Computed F-statistic (63.94525) far exceeded the critical table value (4.06), implying that overall impact is statistically significant and indicating that the explanatory variables are important stimulants of economic growth. Consequently, the paper concludes that the ETF had significant impact on education and economic growth in Nigeria and, thus, recommended adequate funding of the tertiary institutions, more so in the areas of science and technology, self-employment entrepreneurial programmes at the tertiary education level to enhance job creation and employment opportunities, extension of ETF allocations to private universities