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This paper assessed the degree of implementation of science education programme for sustainable development particularly in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Four research questions guided the study. The study adopted programme evaluation design. The population of the study comprised of all the one thousand and eighty (1080) Science teachers from Abakaliki Education Zone of Ebonyi State and out of which one hundred and eight research subjects were selected as sample through proportionate random sampling technique. The instruments that were used for the data collection were checklist and observation schedule drawn from secondary schools science curriculum. The instruments used for were subjected to validation which was validated by experts from different science areas. The instrument were subjected to test of internal consistency using Kendel-W of Concordance for Checklist and Cronbach alpha for Observational Schedule. The reliability indices for Kendel W Concordance yielded 0.77 0.72 and 0.83 respectively and this was specifically for research question 1-3 and the reliability index for the Observational schedule using Cronbach alpha yielded an alpha index of 0.68. Research questions were answered using frequency and percentages. The study established among other things that; biology, chemistry and physics teachers used at secondary for the teaching of science subjects are not adequate with the specification of biology, chemistry and physics core curriculum to effectively teach the subjects. The study also shows that some of the science instructional materials, some teaching facilities such as classrooms and boards are not adequate with the specification of the facilities in the core curriculum. The study therefore recommended inter alia; that government should fund science programme adequately, since science is the key to development, government and school authorities should endeavour to provide adequate instructional material resources for the teaching and learning of sciences, workshops and seminars/conferences should be organized periodically by government for serving biology, chemistry and physics teachers.

The inadequacies of socio-economic and infrastructural facilities in the rural communities in Nigeria has indeed, continued to pose serious challenge to the various governments in the country despite series of intervention programmes initiated and implemented to accelerate rural community development. The availability of these socio-economic infrastructure were believed to have enabled the rural community dwellers have access to the wide distribution of the benefits of the economic growth, significant improvement in the incomes and assets of the poor which would improve their living standard. This study therefore set out to examine the effect of democracy as a bridge builder in the provision of sustainable development in the rural communities in Ebonyi State. The study contends that sustainable development in the rural communities was a typical outcome of the application of democratic principle. It asserts that the practice of democracy is a determining factor in the sustainable development of rural communities in Ebonyi state. The study posits that democracy is the type of government that can guarantee the right of citizens to improved incomes and assets of the poor and to a large extent improve their living standard. The data for the study were collected from documentary sources, media commentaries, scholarly inputs and direct observation, while content analytical approach was adopted. The study adopted system’s theory as its framework of analysis. The study found out that the previous undemocratic governments approach to rural development were not consistent hence, it had no significant impact on the lives of the rural community dwellers. The paper concludes that democracy remains a viable bridge builder for community development in Ebonyi state even though the programme was not sustainable as the impacts were minimal.

Fiscal federalism concerns the sharing of resources among federating units to enable them fulfill their constitutional obligations. This paper attempted to capture the underlying imperatives of fiscal federalism for national development. It opened with the conceptual explication of the concepts of federalism, fiscal federalism and development from where it was noticed that the principle of fiscal autonomy and fiscal integrity are paramount aspects of the survival and continued existence of truly federating system of government. In trying to achieve the purpose of the study, the paper anchored on Buchan Fiscal Residuum Theory having a leeway to determining the balance between the contributions made and the value of the public services returned to individual. The paper revealed that the contending issues and challenges of fiscal federalism could be in form of mismatch between revenue sources and the functions of the various tiers of government. The paper concluded and recommended that there is need to ensure that the distribution of revenue should encourage each state and local governments to improve internal revenue generation, not to constantly and wholly depend on fund coming from the federation account and the issues of intergovernmental relations should be reviewed and respected so that functions to be performed by each tier of government could be explicitly stated.