Absa and the Department of Basic Education have partnered to improve the financial management skills of thousands of education officials and members of school governing bodies (SGBs) at public schools across the country. The School Governing Body Financial Management Programme aims to strengthen financial management and improve accountability of schools.
The initiative has already been implemented in four provinces: Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape. To date more than 10 500 SGB members and 1 146 schools circuit managers have already completed the training. These officials represented more than 2 700 schools in 38 districts in the four provinces.
The training was necessitated by the increasing number of requests to the bank from schools to provide them with overdraft facilities, and their inability to produce financial statements and budgets in many instances.
Dr. Reaan Immelman, Head of Education and Skills Citizenship at Absa, says: “Further research revealed that a substantial number of public schools, both fee and non-fee paying, lacked proper financial management and governance practices.
A key objective of this partnership with the Department of Basic Education is therefore to improve this situation through institutional capacity building in order, and to contribute towards improving the learning environment and delivery of quality education at schools. We believe that with good governance comes better teaching and learning outcomes,” she says.
The School Governing Body Financial Management Programme was designed by facilitators from Absa’s Learning, Leadership and Talent unit and was endorsed by the Department of Basic Education. The programme was intended to:
- Be at the level where everyone, even an SGB member from the most rural of areas, could easily understand it;
- Support and highlight the current financial processes within schools – it was therefore not meant to change any policies or processes within schools; and
- Highlight the importance of proper governance procedures and financial management in running a school in order to perform well.
Being involved in such a programme is in line with Absa’s Shared Growth strategy, through which the bank aims to use its assets and resources to grow and develop the communities where it operates while growing its business.
Education and skills is one of the three key priority areas that Shared Growth focuses on, the others being financial inclusion and enterprise development.
Immelman adds that: “We believe that this intervention in collaboration with the Department of Basic Education will go a long way in contributing to the creation of an environment conducive for learning and delivery of quality education. As an organisation, we recognise the importance of education and skills training to socioeconomic development throughout Africa.
That is why education is one of the three central pillars of our Shared Growth strategy, through which we have committed
Department of Basic Education Director General, Mathanzima Mweli, says: “Although we have had other interventions with regard to financial training before, we’ve never had a programme as accessible as the one provided by Absa.
To partner with a financial institution that fully understands these challenges is also a first for us. In addition, whereas other programmes tend to be province-specific, this particular course has been the only one which has been rolled out on such a large scale by a single sponsor. The impact of such an intervention is already being felt. For this, we are very grateful to Absa and proud of this association.”
Highlights
- Absa has already spent more than R10 million in 2016 in providing financial-management training to school managers
- A total of 10 521 members of school governing bodies from more than 2 700 schools in four provinces have already been trained to date
- Training to be rolled out to other provinces in 2017
Enquiries:
Elijah Mhlanga (Department of Basic Education)
Cell: 083 580 8275
Bheki Mpofu
Cell: 060 991 6039 (Absa Media Relations)
