Exploring Sustainable Funding Management Practices for Facilitating Security Architectures in Public Universities in Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract:  This study explored sustainable funding management practices for facilitating the security architectures of public Universities in Cross River State. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. A total of 172 (10%) respondents was sampled from a population of 1,720 through cluster sampling. A 20-item validated instrument with a Split-half reliability index of .84 and .86, titled: Sustainable Fund Management Practices and Security Facilitation Survey (SFMPSFS) was employed for data collection. Mean and standard deviation and independent t-test were used for data analysis. Findings revealed that items 1 to 10 occur within the range of 3.1-4.0 (Always) which indicate that these items are significant barriers to securing adequate funding for security architectures in public universities in Cross River State. Some of the items include limited budgets, poor prioritization of security funding, cost of security measures, resistance to change, lack of security expertise and community opposition, poor security budget planning and forecasting, failure in diversifying security funding sources, rejecting collaboration with security personnel and loathing security technology adoption in facilitating school security architectures. The result also showed that with the t-test value of 1.87 less than the t-crit. value of 1.960, there is no significant difference in the mean responses on the extent to which Federal and State Universities are facing funding management challenges in facilitating security architectures. It was equally found that items 11 to 20 occur within the range of 2.1-4.0 (Accepted), suggesting that the acceptable strategies for ensuring sustainable funding management practices in facilitating security architectures include collaboration, partnerships with private sectors, community support and advocacy roles among others. It was concluded that the administrators have not adopted sustainable funding practices for facilitating security architectures in the study area. It is recommended amongst others that the administrators should improve security funding via collaboration and advocacy efforts in order to create a safe school environment for students, staff and the public.