FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES IN GOVERNMENT PRIMARY SCHOOLS: THE CASE OF SOUTH AARI WOREDA, SOUTH OMO ZONE SNNPR

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to investigate the financial resource management prac- tices and challenges in government primary schools of South Aari woreda South Omo Zone SNNPR. Descriptive survey design was used for analyzing the data and cluster sampling tech- niques was used for the selection of primary schools, and also purposive sampling technique was used for PSTA, KETB, and key informants. For this purpose QUAL+ quan concurrent re- search approach was employed. The primary data were collected by using structured ques- tionnaires, an in-depth interview, and focus group discussion and the secondary data were collected from document reviews. And totally 116 respondents were selected from 10 primary schools and that comprises14 key informant were purposively selected from Woreda level and 10 focus group discussions with 102 participants were conducted. The study found that, lack of serious attention of stakeholders during schools annual budget plan preparation times, the implementation processes also lacked the participation of stakeholder, lack of financially skilled man power, lack of relevant training, absence of external auditing activities, delay in releasing annual budget were the major challenges of financial management in South Aari woreda government primary schools. In conclusion the schools lacked active participation of stakeholders, capable human resource in financial resources management, practicing finan- cial rules, regulations and directives. In general it is recommended that woreda education of- fice should scale-up that the discussed best practices of primary schools and take all the pos- sible remedial actions to correct the observed weaknesses and avoid repetition.