Teachers learn new skills as schools eye management of funds

FINANCIAL management refresher training for Lae District primary schools over the past two days is seen as the way forward for better management of school funds.
The two-day workshop involved head teachers and school officials from the 22 primary schools in the district.
The workshop gave head teachers a clear understanding of how best they could control funds to run their schools.
District Education manager Kaumu Laga said last year’s workshop was not delivered properly.
“That is why this refresher workshop is to really get the teachers to fully understand and utilise the knowledge and skills learnt back at schools in managing finance,” he said.
Laga said head teachers in the city dealt with huge amounts of money and they needed to be well vested with knowledge in order to manage it well.
He challenged the head teachers to put into practice what they had learnt, adding inspectors visit each school to monitor their progress.
The technical adviser for school management with Evangelical Lutheran Church PNG and facilitator Christine Bocksch said often some head teachers could not to manage school funds properly.
“This training is to help them manage funds in a better way,” she said.
She said those head teachers after the training could provide financial reports for presentation to parents and authorities on how money was spent and used.
Bocksch urged the head teachers to practise what they had learnt, saying if they did not apply these skills, nothing good will be achieved.
Omili Primary School head teacher Doreen Boas said the finance and management was something that many teachers were not familiar with as they did not learn that at the college.
“This refresher workshop gives us more insights into how we could really manage every toea that is in the school account,” she said.
“This should be a continuous workshop to every teacher so that they would know how to acquit funds received”.
Lae Adventist Primary School PNC chairman Steven Mana said the training was important.
He said accounting training was not given to teachers while in college.
“Teachers were just given the post of head teacher at a school and there comes all the financial responsibilities in front of them,” he said.
Mana said many of them did not do know the best way forward in managing finance and that led to some school funds being misused or unaccounted for.