Schools have now been directed to use a standard financial reporting template that will help net secondary school teachers misappropriating funds.
The Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (PSASB) has said the template will enhance accountability and transparency in their administration of public finances.
PROFITABLE
The template contains non-financial information such as school performance, resource allocation per student from the government, fee debtors, suppliers and amounts owed to them.
The boards acting Chief Executive Officer Patrick Abachi said the move is aimed at ensuring that public secondary schools adopt a uniform financial reporting mechanism so as to enhance accountability.
Besides school fees, the template will also capture other income generating activities for the schools that have been a cash cow for principals, who have been understating the money they make from such ventures.
Some big schools have large tracks of land where they have been running profitable agricultural ventures. These now must be captured in the financial statements.
“We have approximately over 9,000 public secondary schools in the country which get direct exchequer allocations each year totalling to almost Sh60 billion to supplement the free secondary education program,” Mr Abachi said.
He added: “On top of this, we are aware that some of these schools also have income generating activities which need to be reflected in their financial statements. It is for this reason that we, in consultation with the Ministry of Education, came up with a simplified reporting template for this category.”
This comes days after the Ministry of Education asked school auditors to scrutinise usage of fees in public primary and secondary schools across the country.
The government has also been pumping hundreds of millions of shillings to the newly created national schools. But PSASB said only a handful of the national schools have adopted the reporting framework.
SH100 BILLION
Mr Abachi said the board is preparing to conduct capacity-building to enable bursars, finance officers, principals and boards of management prepare and interpret the financial statements.
“Since the approval of the template in 2017, we have observed that many public secondary schools especially at the county level have had challenges adopting the new financial reporting model,” he said.
The board said capacity of the personnel charged with the responsibility of preparing financial statements for these schools has been a challenge.
“We are laying down a framework for capacity building so that we can address the problem and bring them on board in the next few months. At the moment, a number of national schools have adopted the template and we are seeing positive development in their financial reporting,” he added.
Public schools spend approximately Sh100 billion every year on school fees, Sh13 billion of which is paid by the government to finance free primary education. Another Sh60billion goes to free day secondary education.
Basic Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang last week told auditors to ensure that they audit every cent and raise a red flag if fraud or abuse of office is identified.
Head teachers, backed by their boards of management, have always been the principal accounting officers for schools, making decisions on supplies, remuneration, daily expenditure and many other financial activities.