Most schools fail to report

By GRACE AUKA
A CENTRAL schools finance and management workshop yesterday heard most schools in the province do not effectively submit financial monthly reports.
Department of Education senior standards officer Paul Ainui said they did not use the Combine Case Book for financial records and most of them had not followed practices in the Financial Management Act, which was established in 2009 by the provincial education division.
He said that failure had contributed to the rundown state of facilities and poor student performances leading to a drop in standard in certain schools.
The two-day workshop in Port Moresby, organised by the provincial education division, began yesterday and brought together heads of national, secondary, primary and high schools in the province.    
Ainui said the purpose of the workshop was to revisit finance management practices in all schools and improve reporting and accountability.
“This is a very important workshop for schools that will bring better perspective on all education partners in Central province education department on what we are doing to address accountability in all our schools,” he said.
He said the six focus areas discussed yesterday were: Budget forecasting, doing a money plan, implementing budget, recording and implementation, monitoring and control and reviewing the budget. 
“For financial reports, several workshops and seminars have been held to help them maintain and strengthen to deal with financial management practices but only few schools have implemented these practices.
“That is, there is lack of quality control and quality assurance when dealing with money with proper evaluation and monitoring,” he said.
The teams attending the workshop come from Central Magarida, Ianu, Kemabolo, Iarowari, Laloki and Redscar high schools, Kupiano, Kwikila, Mt Diamond and Mainohana secondary schools, Sacred Heart Tapini and Sogeri National High School.