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The South African Schools Act, Section 19 [Enhancement of (the) Capacity of Governing Bodies] places the responsibility for the proper training and development of school governing bodies on the shoulders of the Head of Department:

19. (1) Out of the funds appropriated for this purpose by the provincial legislature, the Head of Department must establish a programme to:

19. (1) (a) provide introductory training for newly elected governing bodies to enable them to perform their functions, and

19. (1) (b) provide continuing training to governing bodies to promote the effective performance of their functions or to enable them to assume additional functions

19. (2) The Head of Department must ensure that principals and other officers of the education department render all necessary assistance to governing bodies in the performance of their functions in terms of this Act.

According to Mestry (2004; 129) training in financial school management should practice-based and should cover the following sections:

  • the legal framework that underpins financial management
  • funding of schools, including the school fee policy and school fee exemption policy
  • financial planning, including budgetary planning
  • policy formulation, including finance policy and financial controls
  • school management information systems (MIS)

The 2000 Audit Commission Report quoted in Marishane and Botha (2004; 101): “… in order for school-based financial managers to contribute to improving the school’s efficiency and effectiveness they need training in, inter alia, forecasting, procurement and monitoring expenditure”. Van Wyk (2004; 54) states that training given to school governing bodies by the departments education district (and provincial head office) is usually ineffective as many departmental officials selected to do the training are not experts in financial school management. Some districts employ the services of consultants who do not necessarily have a sound knowledge of school finances to train school governing bodies.

Asset management

Public schools spend a large percentage of their annual budgets with the intention of using the acquired assets for the purposes of quality service delivery. According to Leo (2003; 10) the National Treasury has laid down guidelines for best practices to manage assets acquired by government institutions with the main objective being to promote good financial management within the pubic sector. According to the Public Finance Management Act the responsibility for Asset Management rests with the accounting officer that is with the principal.

Asset Management may be defined as the acquisition, use, safeguarding and disposal of assets to make the most of their service delivery potential and manage their related risks and costs over the useful life of the asset. The objective of asset management is to achieve the best possible match of assets with the delivery of services both internally to the school and externally to the community [Leo (2003; 10)].

The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Gazette, No. R47 (1998; para 9) dealing with Stock Item Registers reads as follows:

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Source:  OpenStax, Financial management of schools. OpenStax CNX. Nov 16, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11137/1.1
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