This study was based on human capital theory. The concept of human capital was fully developed in the 1960s with the emergence of human capital theory formalized by Schultz (1961) and Becker (1962, 1964). Schultz analyzed educational expenditure as a Form of investment whereas Becker developed a theory of human capital formation and analyzed the rate of return to investment in education and training (Famade, 2003). Human beings are regarded as assets, which will generate income in the future and are therefore called capital. It is the view of Adam Smith that education helps to increase the productive capacity of workers, in the same way as the purchase of new machinery or other forms of physical capital which increase the productive capacity of a factory or other functional enterprises. The human capital theory is that additional education or training which increases an individual’s useful knowledge and technology level so the individual’s productivity and lifelong income will increase (Samuel, 2009).
The theory establishes that there is a relationship between the development of human resources and the growth in productivity of the individual as well as the nation at large. The social benefit of education often offers the primary justification for increased investment in education in both developed and developing countries. The need for the education system in Nigeria to address the issues of resource wastages in secondary schools will be greatly emphasized. This is the great challenge education faces in Nigeria and can be tackled aggressively through education resource wastage management strategies. This remains the main issue looked into in the human capital theory. Based on this framework, educational wastages could be curb when it is able to formulate and implement a reasonable degree of policy programmes that will achieve the goals and objectives of education by using effective operating standards of teaching and learning in our schools.
2.2 Conceptual Framework
2.2.1 Strategies: meaning and concept
A strategy is the art and science of planning and marshalling resources for their most efficient and effective use. Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία stratēgia, “art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship”) is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the “art of the general”, which included several subsets of skills including “tactics”, siege craft, logistics etc., the term came into use in the 6th century in the East Roman terminology, and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the 18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word strategy came to denote “a comprehensive way to try to p A method or plan chosen to bring about a desired future, such as achievement of a goal or solution to pursue an ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills. Strategy is important because the resources available to achieve these goals are usually limited. Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions.
A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). The school leadership as an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes. It involves activities such as strategic planning and strategic thinking. McGill University defined strategy as a pattern in a stream of decisions to contrast with a view of strategy as planning while Oyetakin (2011) argues that strategy is about shaping the future and is the human attempt to get to desirable ends with available means. Strategy is a system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure long-term success if followed
Components of strategy
Oyetakin (2011) describes strategy as a type of problem solving. He wrote that good strategy has an underlying structure he called a kernel. The kernel has three parts:
1) A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge
2) A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge and
3) Coherent actions designed to carry out the guiding policy. President Kennedy illustrated these three elements of strategy in his Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation on 22 October 1962:
1. Diagnosis: This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.
2. Guiding Policy: Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere.
3. Action Plans: First among seven numbered steps was the following: To halt this offensive buildup a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back.
Oyetakin (2011) opines three important aspects of strategy include “premeditation, the anticipation of others’ behavior, and the purposeful design of coordinated actions.” He describes strategy as solving a design problem, with trade-offs among various elements that must be arranged, adjusted and coordinated, rather than a plan or choice.
Formulating and implementing strategy
Strategy typically involves two major processes: formulation and implementation. Formulation involves analyzing the environment or situation, making a diagnosis, and developing guiding policies. It includes such activities as strategic planning and strategic thinking. Implementation refers to the action plans taken to achieve the goals established by the guiding policy. Strategy depends upon the ability to foresee future consequences of present initiatives. The basic requirements for strategy development include, among other factors:
1) Extensive knowledge about the environment, market and competitors;
2) Ability to examine this knowledge as an interactive dynamic system; and
3) The imagination and logic to choose between specific alternatives.
Strategy is valuable because of: “finite resources, uncertainty about an adversary’s capability and intentions; the irreversible commitment of resources; necessity of coordinating action over time and distance; uncertainty about control of the initiative; and the nature of adversaries’ mutual perceptions of each other.
Wastages: Meaning, Concept and Indicators
Originating from the language of the economists, the term “wastage” is used within the field of education to describe various aspects of failure of an educational system to achieve its objectives. Education is the key to change and progress; therefore, government of Nigeria has adopted this sector as one of the pillars for poverty reduction. Annually, government allocated various financial and non-financial resources to carry out the primary functions of teaching and learning, but with the rapid expansion of the school system, increasing demand for more school
buildings, more qualified and competent teachers, non-academic staff and instructional facilities for effective teaching and learning becomes inevitable.
Therefore, the provision of these resources would further increase the cost of secondary education. According to Babalola (2013), Nigeria is among the countries where opportunities for human development have been missed, and reasons for this variation have been ascribed to political instability, economic mismanagement, widespread recession, rising interest rates and level of indebtedness. The argument against public subsidy in higher education was very strong, hence primary, secondary and higher education should receive the highest investment priority respectively which must not be eroded by high wastage rate. According to Adamu (2000); Samuel (2009); and Oyetakin (2011), wastages is an unprofitable and uneconomical utilization of time and resources.
The inability of a student to obtain one’s school certificate at the normal time for any reason whatsoever is regarded as wastage. On the other hand, wastage means the input, time, efforts expended in doing things but with no positive outcomes or outputs. Educational wastages mean premature withdrawal of child or students from school at any stage before completion of the prescribed courses. This implies that within an academic year, some student’s dropout of schools for various reasons. According to Education Sector Analysis, dropout/completion rate is one out of the five indicators with which the education system tries to actualize the philosophy of Nigerian Education masses (Federal Government of Nigeria, 2004). Pupils who repeat the same class while their mates proceed to higher classes in the next academic year and those who prematurely withdraw from secondary school before completion are considered as wastage. This wastage threatens the internal efficiency of the education system. It is a stumbling block to the realization of the nation’s aims and objectives of education.
According to Akangbou (2014), the phenomenon of high repetition is experienced in many third world countries and is an indicator of inefficiency of the educational system. He also maintained that repeating a class increases private and public cost of education shouldered by parents and the states and in addition leads to large classes with attendant problems of assessment and supervision of students, more facilities needed, training and recruiting more teachers and provision of additional didactic materials. Repetition of classes may have negative effect on students and parents, therefore, the development of every child must be directed towards the ability of the child-bearing in mind the needs of the society.
Abilities and capabilities of students are not the same in every subject; therefore, teachers must endeavor to develop such child alongside his/her abilities and capabilities which may drastically reduce repetition and its associated frustration that might eventually degenerates to dropout of students from the school system. The trend of dropout, repetition and failure, although observable all over Nigeria has become a syndrome in certain states of the federation.
Akindele (2010) states that the analysis of efficiency in education is necessary in ensuring optimal use of the meager resources allocated to education in order to eliminate or minimize wastage. The additional number of years spent by the repeaters in the course of repeating classes is also viewed as wastages. One major problem confronting secondary education in Nigeria is that the total number of students enrolled for a particular academic session does not graduate from at the specified period. These first remarks on the diversity of the ways in which educational wastage betrays itself point to the fact that one can only define, analyse and compare wastage in the context of the characteristics of the various educational systems. The most important differences depend upon the duration of compulsory schooling and upon the method of dividing up the period between the ages of five or six and eighteen or nineteen years into grades or courses. These two variables allow three types of system to be identified.
There are of course many other differences but they are minor in comparison with the two that play their part in identifying the degree to which systems are prone to educational wastage. In systems which we will call type A, compulsory schooling lasts for a period of between eight, nine or ten years. During this period education is continuous, comprehensive and not divided into stages by selective or other examination devices, beyond this there is an optional senior or secondary cycle lasting from three to five years in which some schools specialize in preparing for universities, others for vocational or technical occupations, others for commercial or agricultural courses etc.
In systems of type B compulsory schooling lasts for eight or nine years or perhaps more, and this period is divided up into a primary school stage lasting from five to six years and a first cycle of secondary school lasting from three to four years or up to the end of compulsory schooling. The primary school curriculum is usually undifferentiated but at the end of this stage selection processes are used to allocate children to different sections with different curricula. Thus, at or about the age of eleven or twelve, children have begun to be oriented towards the kind of studies they will continue thereafter. Beyond the period of compulsory schooling there is an optional senior cycle of secondary education lasting from three to four years, which is organized in a manner similar to the second stage of type A. In systems of type C, there is compulsory schooling for a period of from five to six years.
Primary school occupies the whole of the period of compulsory education and beyond this an optional lower cycle of secondary school lasts from three to four years and is similar in organization to the corresponding stage of type B systems. Many developing countries have vocational schools at this level. Above this there is a senior cycle of secondary education lasting from three to four years and again its organization resembles that found in type B systems. Particularly but not solely in the developing countries two different attitudes are recognizable with respect to compulsory schooling: in some, legal provisions on the subject exist but cannot be fully applied; in others, schooling is gradually being generalized but no law on compulsory attendance has yet been adopted. Akpan (2011) agrees that Most of such countries have educational systems of type C and there are also a few of type B. Other countries again employ a strict interpretation of compulsory schooling and are successful in applying it. These countries usually have optional education beyond this point which is providing for about 80 per cent of those who would otherwise be school leavers, for a further period of two or three years. Thus, even where no law or legal enforcement of school attendance exists, the holding power of the school may in fact be more effective than in cases where compulsory schooling is legally enacted.
A further way, in which systems differ, regardless of their type, is in terms of the use made of examinations. Examinations may be employed to certify success at the completion of a stage and it is a common practice to use the results of the same examinations for admission to the subsequent stage. However, some systems require that a further examination be taken for admission to the next stage or a selected part of it. The arguments in favour of selective examinations for admission to stages rest partly on practical and partly on theoretical grounds. The pragmatic argument is that there are a limited number of places which ought to be given to those who are best suited for them; the theoretical argument is that those who enter the subsequent stage should have achieved a standard beyond the minimum set for success in the previous stage. The former view is undeniable but the latter is open to question. Whatever the reasons given for the use of examinations it is undoubtedly true that they exercise a pronounced effect upon the increase in numbers of children who drop-out from school or are compelled to repeat the grade. Despite the absence of statistical data to represent the effect of examinations on wastage in the Member States of Unesco, the subject is of such importance that it will be treated more fully. But before we do so, the basic symptoms of wastage need to be understood in relation to the types of system which reveal them.