The Practices and Challenges of Educational Planning and Budget Utilization in Government Primary Schools: The Case of bale Lone, Oromia State
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Date
2008-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to assess the practices and challenges of
planning and budgeting in govemment primary school in Bale Zone. To CalT !J
out the s tudy ques tionnaires and interviews we re used as ins trument of' clelf.n
collection. The study was conducted in 25 primary schools randomly selecl:ed
from 5 woredas in the zone. A total of 45 principals 64 KETB and 56 PT/\
members were involved in the s tudy. The data gathered were analyzed us ing
frequ ency, 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 s chool plan was regularly done by the
principals. As the majority of respondents reported, having prepared their
plan, the s chools 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, as principals revealed,
sometimes the schools were forced to adjust their budget plan to WEO budget
ceiling. In this case, though the decentralization s y s tems were said to be
practiced in schools, except management, other activities like budgeting was
highly centralized to woredas . The budget dis tributed to s chools was
detennined by the WEO cabinets without the involvement of the
representatives of the s chools . The schools were uns atisfied on the way the
budget was allocated to them, which was mail/ly in kinds. This is becaus e,
according to most of the respondents, the mate rials dis tributed to schools
were poor both in quantity and quality. Since the budget allocated to schools
was inadequate to cover the exp ense of the schools, problems such as
s hortage of educational materials were very common. In order to solve the
problems mentioned above, the s tudy recommends the community has to be
initiated to participate actively in their schools planning and budgeting
proces s. 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 s chools.
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Keywords
assess the practices, and challenges of planning