| The purpose of this study was to evaluate the system of accounting and auditing control in the Nigerian educational system in comparison to accepted accounting and auditing control practices. Respondents for this study included the Controller of Finance and Accounts, the Chief Accountant, Chief Auditor, and two accountants in the Ministry of Finance of the State of Bendel, Benin City, Nigeria. A mailed survey of opinions about financing the educational system in Nigeria was completed by 117 teachers, principals, other governmental employees in the Bendel State of Nigeria, and 50 Nigerian college students and Nigerian diplomatic officials in the U.S.A.; Results indicated that the vast majority of the respondents viewed the funding of education in Nigeria as corrupt, having no controls for accountability, subject to venal political influences, and ineffective. They agreed that auditing practices needed to be changed and be made public. They also indicated that the Ministry of Education accounting department needed to be decentralized. There were no systematic differences in the perceptions of the problems of the Nigerian educational finance accounting system between Nigerians living in Nigeria and those living in the United States, nor were there any systematic differences in the perceptions among students, educators, and civil servants. Among Nigerian residents, civil servants were generally more critical of education than the educators, while the educators tended to be more critical of the allocation and accounting procedures within education. In the U.S. sample, educators were more critical of Federal government accounting, while civil servants were more suspicious of state accountants.; Interviews conducted with accountants in the Bendel State Ministry of Finance indicated that, in the Bendel state, records were kept that were subject to internal and external audits, and that accountability systems were in place. Major weaknesses of the system were: inconsistency on policy matters, inaccurate information, records that had no relationship with each other due to frequent changes in the system, the manual method of accounting, and insufficient supervision. When queried about corruption, they focused on frauds perpetrated by students and banks more than the problems of misallocation of funds within the Ministry of Education. |
