FINANCIAL LITERACY AND SAVINGS BEHAVIOUR OF LECTURERS OF COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN BAUCHI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated financial literacy and savings behaviour of lecturers in colleges of education in Bauchi State, Nigeria. Two objectives, two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Survey research design was used for the study. The population of the study was made up of all 1070 lecturers from the three government accredited Colleges of Education in Bauchi State of Nigeria. The sample size of the study was 82 respondents from the three selected colleges of education for the study. A self-structured questionnaire tagged “Financial Literacy and Savings Behaviour Questionnaire (FLSBQ)” was used for data collection. The instrument was validated for face and content validity by three experts. The reliability of the instrument was found to be 0.99. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation, for answering the research questions and inferential statistics of ANOVA for testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level significance. A mean score of 3.50 and above was used as criterion for taking decisions. Key findings revealed that lecturers in Colleges of Education in Bauchi State possessed a low level of financial literacy and demonstrated a low level of savings behaviour. The study further found a significant difference in the mean scores of lecturer’s financial literacy levels across the three colleges. Again, a significant difference was found in their mean scores regarding their savings behaviour. The study concluded that although lecturers had low level of financial knowledge, their savings behaviour was influenced by economic challenges such as unstable income, family responsibilities, and regional insecurity, which affected their ability to save consistently. The study recommended that Colleges of Education in Bauchi State needed to collaborate with financial institutions and government agencies to provide continuous financial literacy training, strengthen welfare support systems, and promote formal savings platforms.