Orientation of the study

The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and the South African Schools Act mandate the Minister of (Basic) Education to determine Norms and Standards for the funding of public schools and to fund public schools out of public revenue. Because the public (taxpayers) fund schools, schools are accountable to the public (taxpayers) in terms of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), which implies that the accounting officer (of the school) must:

• maintain a system of financial controls
• maintain a system of internal audits
• maintain appropriate procurement procedures
• account for and control revenue
• account for and control expenditure
• take responsibility for the maintenance and safeguarding of assets;

[PFMA (2000; 28)]

This anomaly between the requirements of the PFMA on the one hand and observations of what actually took place in schools on the other hand was the catalyst for this study. The study examines the financial role function of the school finance committee (FINCOM) and other relevant stakeholders within the context of school governance.

Rationale

“Governments in countries all around the world (United States, Australia, India and Britain) are promoting school-based management. The trend is away from bureaucratic control of education towards self-managing schools” [DoE: Self-Managing Schools (2000; 5)]. The path towards self-management manifests itself in the mandatory functions, which have been devolved to SGBs via section 20 of the South African Schools Act. Schools are encouraged to move from self-management towards complete self-reliance via the application for allocated functions, commonly referred to as section 21 functions. The intended shift from state control to self-management and ultimately full self-reliance comes with a concomitant shift in responsibility and accountability. Whether the school is self-managed (Non-Section 21) or self-reliant (Section 21) we need to ask the question:

• who is responsible for the management of the school’s finances?
• what assistance can be offered to public school financial managers?

This study will investigate whether South African School principals, assisted and supported by their school governing bodies, in general, and principals of public schools in the Pinetown Education Department, assisted and supported by their school governing bodies in particular are:

• able to manage the schools finances
• competent (sufficiently skilled) to perform the financial management function
• provided with the necessary training to manage the finances

– in short are financial managers coping.

Statement of the problem

There are likely to be a vast number of factors inherent in the Culture Of Learning, Teaching and Service Delivery [COLTS] in many of the schools in the Pinetown Education District such as unionism; cronyism; nepotism; regard/disregard for ones moral obligation to perform ones job adequately; an existent/non-existent code of ethics; capacity/lack of capacity – to name but a few, which contribute to/mitigate against public school financial management team’s ability/lack of ability to carry out their Key Responsibility Areas to the best of their abilities.