MAJOR FACTORS AFFECTING FINANCIAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN GOVERNMENT SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF WOLAITA ZONE

Abstract

he main objective of the study was to investigate factors affecting financial resource management in government secondary schools of Wolaita Zone. The design employed in this study was concurrent embedded and the method employed was mixed. For this study, 265 teachers, 32 school management (6 main principals, 14 vice principals, 6 PTSA and 6 KETB), 6 cluster supervisors and 6 finance officers with a total of 309 respondents were involved as a sample from 12 secondary schools, 2 town administration and 4 woredas. The data gathering instruments were questionnaire, interview and document analysis. The participants of interview were cluster supervisors and finance officers. Questionnaire was administered to teachers and school committee members. Both primary and secondary data were collected from various sources. The collected data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis. A pilot study was conducted before the main study in order to examine the reliability and validity of the research questionnaire. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient technique was used to test reliability while academic scholars such as colleagues, lectures, professors in the field were consulted to determine the content validity of the research questionnaire. The study found that school principals’ management skills, budgetary procedures, internal control, and school management committee were found to influence the financial resource management in secondary schools to a great extent. The finding also indicated that the financial resource management and utilization in secondary schools were not in the expected level as indicated by mean value (1.99 and 2.15). The major factors identified in financial resource management in the secondary schools were lack of experience of the school principals on budgetary control, lack of experience of the school principals on budget preparation and lack of transparency on financial activities for the school community. The secondary schools should include all functions of financial resource management to better implement and maximize the gains from other functions in order to foster the schools overall performance. School leaders had better involve stakeholders on budget preparation and budget execution, WEO should be employed financial personnel, WEO together with MoFED prepare financial management training program for schools and strengthening internal and external auditing in order to reduce the challenges of financial resource management in government secondary schools.