FOREIGN AID

The Development of a standard and comparable educational system has played a major role in the growth and development of most countries, both advanced and developing. Some ofthe major sources offund to this sector has remainedgovernment expenditure andforeign aid. Hence this research work employs secondary data covering the period of 1980 to 2019 to examine the nexus among government expenditure, foreign aid and educational growth in Nigeria. Variables employed includes Literacy rate (LRT),Government Expenditure (GEX), Foreign Aid and other development assistance (FRA) and Real Gross Domestic Product per Capita growth rate (RGDPPC). Data on the relevant variables were obtainedfrom the Central Bank ofNigeria (CBN) statistical Bulletin (2019) and the World Bank's World Development Indicators (WDI, 2019). The work employed the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test for Unit Root and the Johansen Co-integration techniquefor thepossibility oflong run relationship. An empirical model was estimated using the Error Correction Model (ECM) of regression analysis. The results indicated that government expenditure, foreign aid and real GDP per capita shares a positive and significant relationship with Literacy rate in Nigeria. The concluded that the educational system can be reasonably improved if attention is paid to these important variables. Hence, it was recommended among others that the government should increase budgetary allocation to the education sector, attention should be paid to capital projects, appropriate diplomatic policies to attract more foreign aid, checks to prevent the mismanagement appropriated funds.