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A GREAT deal of control of school financing in the State sector has been turned over to heads and parents with the Government paying teachers’ salaries but all fees and levies being retained by the school for the many other things that have to be bought or paid for.
The system has the huge advantage that parents know that every dollar they hand over to the school goes on their children’s school. It does not disappear into the general Government accounts and perhaps come back as a grant later on.
This should make parents more active, more responsible and more willing to pay.
Unfortunately, as Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora has noted, not all heads and school development committees are managing the funds properly and in some cases there is theft and corruption. There have been court cases.
This is why the minister has now ordered an audit of most schools in the State sector.
We believe that most heads and most school development committees will welcome such an audit. They must dislike being lumped together with the minority of their corrupt colleagues. A clean audit will help them persuade the parents of their school to keep up their support and ensure that every dollar owed is paid and that every dollar paid is put to good use in educating the children.
We see this throughout much of the non-Government sector. All Trust schools, for example, have their accounts audited every year. Most parents do not study the audit report in detail; just knowing that there is a non-adverse audit report available if they wish to study it normally satisfies parents that their money is properly accounted for and properly spent.
Parents need to understand that there are two facets to an audit report. The one that grabs headlines is when auditors discover theft, corruption, kickbacks and other criminal activity. More common are suggestions in improving financial management, good record keeping and adoption of best practices. In this second case there is no hint of criminal activity, but the auditor has had to sweat a bit to be satisfied on this point.
Few school development committees have the advantage of a trained accountant among their members and while headmasters have been shown how to keep proper basic accounts there is normally always room for improvement and often an auditor can suggest procedures that allow a school to get full value for every dollar.
Even the best and most honest heads and SDCs should welcome such advice and should be willing to pump the auditors for such assistance. For some schools the visit might be their only chance of getting access to decent financial advice.
The auditors themselves need to be flexible and sensitive. Obviously if they find even a hint of criminal activity they must blow the whistle; there can be no exceptions there.
But at most schools they are going to find heads and SDCs making an honest attempt at running properly, who do try hard to maintain adequate records and who are generally doing their best. But it may also be obvious that they do not know enough about best practices and the finer points of accounting. Here they need to help and perhaps run a short seminar for the SDC; even a one-day session could help many schools.
Indeed because this audit is so comprehensive, the Ministry might well find that when all reports are in it may well be necessary to publish a basic handbook for SDCs and to organise training sessions once a year or every two years for at least the core members of the SDCs. The Ministry might also find that it needs to keep its heads updated on accounting procedures and perhaps organise extra training for heads and those in line for headships.
The Ministry will know where there are weaknesses, the common problems facing SDCs and heads, and will have recommendations that all can follow. Often suspicions, accusations, counter accusations and the like can be avoided if everything is done properly from the beginning.
Prevention is better than cure.
The important point for all to recognise is that the Ministry has now ordered a full audit. The audit will remove the crooks from the system.
Online Reporter