Abstract:
State-owned universities in Sri Lanka and Nigeria practice outsourcing either consciously or
intuitively. Outsourcing has been part of spontaneous means of generating revenue. Therefore,
the concept of outsourcing is not new in financing universities in both countries.
Subcontracting, consultancy, part time among others was used in describing outsourcing by
various institutions in Nigeria and Sri Lanka. Due to were budget deficit in Sri Lankan
government limit capital outlay in public sector organizations. In Nigeria, some state
governments’ advised state owned universities to strengthen their internally generated revenues
(IGR) in order to sustain the continuity of the universities. The objective of this study is to
examine how outsourcing can fit into university education financing in these two countries.
This study is explanatory and uses secondary data from relevant literatures available. In order
to collect the data, the study selected two State Universities i.e, Adamawa State University
Mubi, Nigeria and University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. The study revealed that outsourcing
increases revenue in both universities under study through cost savings in recruitment,
employee compensation, overtime, hazard, transport, health and insurance scheme among
others. Adamawa state university division of General Studies (GST) and School of Basic and
Remedial Studies (SBRS) insource and outsource teaching services whereas university of
Ruhuna outsource cafeteria and cleaning services; both universities save cost worth millions of
Nigerian Naira (NGN) and Sri Lankan Rupees (LKR) per annum respectively. Hence, the study
recommends the integration of outsourcing in financing of university education in both
countries.
