The Practices and Challenges of Educational Planning and Budget Utilization in Government Primary Schools: The Case of bale Zone. Oromia State

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2008-06

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Addis Ababa University

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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.

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