FSE Funds Released as Government introduces new accounting guidelines for secondary schools
The Government through the Ministry of Education has introduced a new reporting format for all public secondary schools in the country that will require Principals to report on all school assets and revenue generated therein.
The new format will also review the Current reporting format to align it to the ongoing reforms in the management of public finances for transparency and accountability in the utilization of public resources and international best practices.
Through a circular dated August 19, 2021 and signed by the Principal Secretary State Department of Early Learning and Basic Education Dr. Julius Jwan, the government through the Ministry of Education wants to improve on the current reporting format used to audit school resources in all public secondary schools and align it to the Public Finance Management(PFM) Act, 2012.
In the current reporting format, government capitation sent annually to secondary schools and fees were the only items being accounted for. The Basic Statistical Booklet of 2019 revealed that there were 8,933 secondary schools in the country. All these schools will now have a standard format of preparing their financial statements.
The current reporting structure has been in use for a long time and might have been aligned to that of 2003 when the government introduced the Free Primary Education capitation and Free Day] Secondary Education capitation in 2008.
Since then, a number of legal developments have taken place which required certain components to be factored in the current reporting in order to align it with the current legal frameworks notably the 2010 Constitution.A number of Acts amongst them the PFM Act 2012 and Basic Education Act 2013 have also been enacted to streamline the education sector.
