Financing university education in Nigeria : a proposal for infrastructure replenishment in universities

The subject of replenishment of infrastructure in Nigerian public universities has been of great concern to stakeholders in the educational system. How to obtain an appropriate replenishment plan that would give the desired infrastructure for a university after a certain period of time is a long-standing problem. We attempt to find a solution to this problem from an engineering perspective based on optimal control theory. The revenue generated through the payment of school fees and the costs of investment in infrastructure are used to construct the objective function. The state variables are the amount budgeted for such an investment and the stock of infrastructure, while the rate of replenishment is used as the control variable. The problem is solved by utilising Pontryagin’s principle. The dynamics of the replenishment plan is illustrated with an example. The results show that there should be a steady increase in the amount budgeted, in order to attain the desired infrastructure.