<< Chapter < Page Chapter >> Page >

Principal 5: “Staff members have a heavy academic workload so it is not possible for them to take on additional duties.”

Educator 8 stated that even though he had a heavy workload as an Accounting Head of Department he took on the additional duty as treasurer of the SGB as there was no body else willing or capable of performing this important function.

Educator 7: “The time I spent as a member of the FINCOM sometimes has a negative impact on my core responsibility, that is teaching.”

Principal 2: “The state should consider deploying state paid finance officers to all schools.”

4.3.7.theme 7: training of school governing bodies

All participants agreed that the Pinetown Education District had reneged on its legislative mandate to fulfil its functions in terms of Section 19 of the South African Schools Act, which is to train newly elected governing bodies and to provide continual training for existing governing bodies.

Principal 1: “I was appointed as principal four years ago just before the election of the previous SGB. In their three-year term of office they had never been trained. We are soon to elect a new SGB – they too probably won’t be trained. In fact I have not been inducted into my current job.”

Principal 4: “None of my GB members have ever been trained by the district.”

Principal 6: “Even if the SGB was trained (which they were not) because of the high turnover rate training would have to be regular and continuous.”

Principal 9: “I think we will be electing our fifth set of school governors for the next three-year term of office. I don’t think that the third and forth GBs were trained.”

Educator 3: “The Pinetown Education District presented its forth annual District Improvement Plan (DIP) to schools in April 2009 – it looked like a photocopy of the previous three years plans, none of which came to fruition. The district seems to be good at planning but is unable to implement.”

The literature review indicates quite clearly that financial management training is one of the areas of professional development requiring special attention. Clarke (2008; 278) reads as follows: “… principals have little or no training or expertise (in financial management) and elected SGB members are equally ill-equipped.” Mestry (2004; 126) concurs: “… principals and SGB members lack the necessary financial knowledge and skills.” Section 19 of the South African Schools Act mandates the Provincial Education Department to provide:

(i) introductory training for newly elected governing bodies to enable them to perform their functions, and

(ii) continuing training to governing bodies to promote the effective performance of their functions or to enable them to assume additional functions

4.3.8.the role of the department of education

It is standard practice for schools to submit monthly, quarterly and annual financial reports to the district office. All the participants unanimously agreed that Education Districts in general and the KZNDoE in particular showed absolutely no interest in schools’ finances. Some participant sites were victims of misappropriation of funds, which had been reported to the KZNDoE – these reports appear to have been ignored.

Principal 3: “All the Service Centre wants is our audited annual financial statements. I know that they are never read because they phoned me just the other day for my (i) written assurance, (ii) compliance certificate and (iii) transfer payment certificate which were included in my audited annual financial statements submitted in June 2009.

Educator 5 supported by parent 5 stated that they had reported misappropriation of funds to the Superintendent of Education and the Pinetown Education District Office and to date nothing has been done.

Educator 1: “About three years ago our school was defrauded of about a quarter of a million rand – to date nothing has been done by the district or the province.”

Principal 8: “We hand in our audited annual financial statements dutifully every year expecting at least some response from the KZNDoE – none has been forthcoming. I think that the audited annual financial statements are collected so that someone can tick a collection sheet.”

Principal 9: “We once erroneously handed in the wrong audited annual financial statements – no one was the wiser.”

The comments by the participants supports and is supported by the literature review: “… financial information has no intrinsic value; it must be used by managers to develop plans, evaluate alternative courses of action and where necessary take corrective action. The production of (financial) information is not an end in itself, and reports are not scrutinized and used by managers the quality of information will remain poor.” [Accounting Officers Guide (2000; 19)].

Get Jobilize Job Search Mobile App in your pocket Now!

Get it on Google Play Download on the App Store Now




Source:  OpenStax, Financial management of schools. OpenStax CNX. Nov 16, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11137/1.1
Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google Inc.

Notification Switch

Would you like to follow the 'Financial management of schools' conversation and receive update notifications?

Ask