The Practices and Challenges of Educational Planning and Budget Utilization in Government Primary Schools: The Case of bale Zone. Oromia State
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2008-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to assess the practices and challenges of
planning and budgeting in government primary school in Bale Zone. To carry
out the study questionnaires and interviews were used as instrument doting
collection. The study was conducted in 25 primary schools randomly selected
from 5 worsted in the zone. A total of 45 principals 64 KETB and 56 PTA
members were involved in the study. The data gathered were analyze d u sing
Frequency, percentage, and mean and standard deviation. The findings made
it clear that there was low community involvement in the process of school
planning· and budgeting. The school plan was regularly done by the
principals. As the majority of respondents reported, having prepared their
plan, the schools sent them to WEO for approval. Although the plan for some
activities could be approved at school level, for major activities and mainly the
plan of annual budget was approved by WEO. Thus, a s principals revealed,
sometimes the schools were forced to adjust their budget plan to WEO budget
ceiling. .In this case, though the decentralization systems were said to be
practiced in schools, except management, other activities like budgeting was
highly centralized to worsted. The budget distributed to schools was
determined by the WEO cabinets without the involvement of the
representatives of the schools. The schools w e re unsatisfied on the way the
budget was allocated to them, which was maillot in finds . This is because,
according to most of the respondents, the male rials distributed to schools
were poor both in quantity and quality. Since the budget a located to schools
was inadequate to cover the expense of the schools, problems such as
shortage of educational materials were very common. In order to solve the
problems mentioned above, the study recommends the community has to be
initiated to participate actively in their schools planning and budgeting
process. Similarly, the WEO has to allocate budgets according to the manual
of the MOE which states the number of students as a criterion to allocate
budgets for schools.
Description
Keywords
IER