Evaluating the Effectiveness of Monitoring Financial Performance in South African Public Schools

Abstract

This study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of monitoring financial performance of governing body in South Africa public schools by examining financial policies if they are effectively and efficiently implemented across public schools in uMgungundlovu district. Furthermore, governing body should ensure that policies are implemented successfully to improve financial performance at a school level. Most of the study are conducted on training of school governing bodies and finance committee members. Little, study is conducted in measuring the financial performance of governing body in South Africa public schools.  A mixed method descriptive design was employed in this study using semi-structured online interviews and questionnaire to gather data from 53 governing body members who were purposively selected in UMgungundlovu district, KwaZulu Natal. The data was analysis using both thematic and SPSS version 24. The major finding of the study reveals that a lack of clarity and inadequate training of newly appointed governing body members and user-unfriendliness of financial guidelines is used. Furthermore, the used of different training manual in all 9 provinces show lack of collaboration between the provinces. Additionally, there was a lack of effective communication and coordination among both the internal and external stakeholders, and a noticeable absence of consequence management by the Department of Basic Education. The study recommends that the Department of Basic Education should consider designing a user-friendly digital training manual to assist the finance committee members and governing bodies. Furthermore, to develop a digital monitoring and evaluation model to check the use of funds and organizational performance is imperative in the days of artificial intelligence.