Effective guidelines for financial management in Zimbabwean secondary schools

Since the establishment of the School Development Committees (SDCs), Zimbabwe has seen increased participation by parents in the governance of schools. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of parents in promoting improved science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in rural day secondary schools in Zimbabwe. Drawing on a qualitative inquiry, data were gathered by means of five interviews, five focus group discussions and document analysis of minutes of SDC meetings, schools strategic plans and school budgets. The study concludes that parental involvement helped decentralize school decision making, improved school accountability to their communities, provided the avenue for parents to question decisions, and helped accelerate infrastructural development. The study further concludes that inadequate funding in the wake of economic challenges bedevilling the country and low levels of literacy among SDC members militated against effective participation of SDC members in the governance of schools. The study recommends capacitating SDCs executive members through training, empowering them to raise funds for capital development in these schools, and clear delineation between SDC roles and the instructional roles of school principals and teachers.

The study explored factors that influence financial management in Chegutu District Secondary Schools of Mashonaland West Province, Zimbabwe. The study was stimulated by the serious financial challenges in secondary schools as characterised by failure to follow laid down procedures, disagreements, inadequate training and lack of knowledge by both school heads and SDC members in managing finances. The interpretive paradigm and qualitative approach guided the study. A case study design was adopted and purposively sampled participants constituted five school heads, five School Development Committee chairpersons, five School Development Committee treasurers and five school bursars. Thematically analysed data was collected through semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The findings revealed that manuals and policy circulars influence the way schools formulate their budgets as they give clear steps that should be followed. It also emerged from the study that the school finance committee is responsible for drawing the school budget after consultation with other stakeholders. It was found that training of school heads, School Development Committee members and bursars influence financial management to a larger extent and there is a very strong relationship between financial management training and effectiveness of financial management in secondary schools. The study concluded that good working relationship among stakeholders and lack of knowledge by both school heads and School Development Committee members in managing school finances greatly influence the way they execute their duty of managing school finances. The study recommends further research that explores strategies that can be established for improving the way schools manage finances.

This study sought to find out the challenges faced by school heads in the management of school finances in Nkayi District. The population comprised all the 30 secondary schools in the district. Random sampling was used to come up with a sample of ten (10) schools from where 40 respondents were purposefully selected. The study adopted the descriptive survey design and the questionnaire and interview were used as the research instruments for collecting data. The study established that most heads lacked the accounting literacy required for effective management of school finances, and that there was little or no supervision at all from the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education finance department personnel on financial management issues. The study recommends that there should be capacity building programmes for heads of schools, deputy heads as well as members of the school development committees. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education should increase both announced and unannounced visits to schools to monitor the use of finances in the schools . Key words: Challenges, schools heads, secondary school, school finances, management, district.

This paper discusses the nature of the implementation of School Development Committees (SDC) in the government school sector in Sri Lanka. The Programme of School Improvement (PSI) is being implemented in Sri Lanka since 2006. According to the PSI regulations and guidance, schools are anticipated to form School Development Committees (SDC) to make school decisions. Main research question in this study is: “how is the SDC implementation in the Colombo district government schools?” The nature of this study is qualitative inquiry, and multiple case study approach was used to inquire this research problem. Five schools were selected purposively, and five principals, five deputy principals, fifteen teachers and fifteen parents were comprised in the sample. Document survey, questionnaire and semi structured interviews were used to gather information in this study. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis technique. Since the PSI implementation, the decision making process has been significantly changed. It seems that, most schools do not implement authentic democratic and participatory decision making style and participatory management approaches in school management. Most of the principals still perform the key role in decision making in the schools. Principal’s responsibility and accountability has been improved since he/ she has to execute new roles in school management. Lack of resources, negative attitudes and lack of awareness of the stakeholders are the key barriers to perform role of the SDC. Therefore, it is imperative to organize PSI awareness programmes since the stakeholders do not have better understanding on PSI or SBM. In addition, it is necessary to establish an administrative body to supervise PSI implemented schools, and to guide SDC members.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/kjm.v1i2.6452 Kelaniya Journal of Management Vol.1(2) 2012:28-50

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of school heads’ financial management skills in the provision of quality education in secondary schools. This study explored secondary data by reviewing documents and literature materials from online publications and libraries to attain the intended purpose of the study. The study found out that financial management skills such as mobilizing school funds, monitoring, evaluation of budget, and auditing skills were essential for school financial management. The study also found that most of the school heads possess insufficient skills in financial management as school managers. Other financial management challenges were a shortage of school funds, poor monitoring, evaluation, and auditing of school finances. The study suggests strategies such as capacity building among the school heads. Also, decentralization of financial decision making, relevant school mission, and vision, enhance effective monitoring, evaluation, and auditing of financial report as strategies for improving school heads’ financial management skills. The study recommended the necessity of having school heads who are skilled in school-based financial management strategies. The study requested responsible departments or ministries concerns with education to make financial management skills be one of the pre-condition for hiring or promoting a teacher to the top post of school administration.

This study sought to investigate the impact of corporate governance on financial management of public secondary schools in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were to: To establish the impact of the board composition on financial management of secondary schools, to establish the composition of board skills on the financial management of public secondary schools, and to analyze how the application of corporate governance principles impacts the financial management of public secondary schools. This study was undertaken among the 41 secondary schools in Siaya County the target population comprised of 205 respondents who were either Chairman. Treasures, parent teacher association member, board of governor member or auditor in the respective institution. Using stratified sampling a sample size of 137 was arrived at although only 110 responded giving an 80% response rate which was considered sufficient. Questionnaires was used as a data collection tool and using SPSS version 20, the descriptive and inferential statistics was computed. The analysis revealed that majority were aware of budgeting practices in schools and as board member, they oversee supply chain management, movable asset management and control. It was also noted that the members prioritize on use of scarce resources to ensure effective stewardship over public money and assets and most of the respondents were actively involved in planning and implementation of the financial plan, accounting and reporting on funds management. A positive correlation was established thus a positive change in board composition led to a positive change in financial management. The findings also revealed that presence of accounting knowledge was vital in order to improve financial management in schools and the board had illustrated governance expertise in the last five year. It was also established tenure of board member affected financial management and all members had information on projects undertaken by the school. Positive correlation revealed that with every positive change in board skills there is a positive change in financial management. Lastly the findings revealed that management and board of director’s are efficient and have capacity to perform their duties properly and it was also established that there are set rules and policies that generate information on roles and responsibilities. The members were also found to be able to effectively manage issues of procurement, allocation and control of financial resources although there was no clear response on difficulties in managing large volumes of paper work. Positive correlation revealed that with every positive change in corporate governance there is a positive change in financial management.

The importance of financial management is to ensure a regular and adequate supply of funds. Optimum utilization of the company's organizational finances is of course through financial management. Financial management is an important part of the management financial governance process which includes resource mobilization, program priorities, the budgeting process, all of these activities reflect economic activity and are certainly in accordance with an economic perspective and information systems. For the continuity of good financial governance, it is hoped that appropriate analysis and evidence will be used in making financial decisions or management decisions with economic variables from the economic system through financial performance, competitive advantage, human resource management and audit quality. In a company there are elements that need to be understood such as actions, behaviors that describe everything related to financial management in making decisions in companies with logical considerations. In this study is an overview of the shipping service companies listed on the Indonesian stock exchange with financial governance and boundaries so that problems that arise in financial governance can be observed and narrowed down for a management decision. When patterns are carried out in financial governance through studies of audit quality, human resources, competitive advantage of financial performance, it is hoped that there will be influences that are closely related to each other to support each other in order to achieve a more advanced corporate financial decision, as well as an overview for making a decision that is good and right

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the sequential explanatory mixed method research design and how it can enhance our understanding of pain management. The general prevalence of pain after surgery has not changed significantly over several decades despite the widespread introduction of new pain relieving technologies. The majority of postoperative pain studies use quantitative methods which offer little understanding of the underlying processes of care. Understanding can be illuminated by using an explanatory mixed method research design. Discursive paper. This paper focuses on the methodological considerations when using a mixed method design. Two previously published mixed methods studies illustrate how findings can inform practice. In the first, 85 women undergoing surgery completed questionnaires to measure pain, anxiety and depression. Telephone interviews explored their pain experiences. The second study considered frequency and patterns of anxiety in the immediate pre and postoperative period. Semi-structured telephone interviews, identified contributing events/situations amenable to nursing intervention. Reasons for growing popularity, criticisms, paradigmatic considerations and epistemological roots of pragmatism are explored. The two explanatory mixed method studies provide examples of these studies and how 'inferences' from quantitative and qualitative data can inform practice. This paper connects quantitative and qualitative data, drawing on two research studies, to give greater understanding to the management of pain. Knowledge of the processes responsible for inadequate pain management can be illuminated by using explanatory mixed methods research designs. Nursing requires knowledge which reflects the complexity of human health. The explanatory mixed method study can elucidate the problem under scrutiny, e.g. prevalence of pain or anxiety. The qualitative phase can generates an understanding of contributing factors and insights for care delivery. The implicit desire to change and influence practice makes it relevant for those closely aligned to practice.

The chapter is a walkthrough of a practical application of the explanatory sequential mixed method research design to investigate the adoption of open educational resources at a higher education institution in Zimbabwe. This is a complex phenomenon that required both quantitative measures to establish the nature and extent and precise qualitative explanations and justifications, an inherent precondition of mixed methods research. Justifiably explanatory sequential mixed method research was the appropriate research design to unpack the complex research problem due to its unique nature that permits flexible ontological, epistemological, philosophies, and analytical perspectives. The chapter illustrates how the quantitative component is complemented by the qualitative component to explain the complex phenomenon through integrated analysis and interpretation of research findings leading to valid conclusions and recommendations. In contribution to the development and use of explanatory sequential mixed methods research design, a new framework is proposed based on the lessons learned.

Nowadays, more and more enterprises are listed, but at this stage of Listed Companies in the financial control and management still have existed defects. This paper, first, gives a contrasting analysis on the listed companies which have performed better than any other listed companies in China and European countries in financial management; second, gives descriptive statistics of some of the listed Chinese and European countries companies' financial management current situation, mainly proceeding from China’s financial governance structure mode, and compared and analyzed with European financial management; finally, the paper utilizes the analytic hierarchy process analysis to analyze the final statistics of financial governance index, the data show that there is a certain gap, low level compared to the present stage of our country's listed companies in the financial control and management with the European countries.

This study explores the intellectual development of research on financial governance and management strategies within startup ecosystems through a bibliometric analysis of Scopus-indexed publications from 2019 to 2025. Using VOSviewer, this study maps citation networks, co-authorship collaborations, keyword co-occurrence, and thematic evolution to identify dominant research patterns and emerging financial topics. The results reveal a significant growth in scholarly attention to financial management issues, including funding strategies, financial sustainability, governance mechanisms, and resource allocation in startup ecosystems. Network visualization identifies three major research clusters focusing on financial governance frameworks, strategic financial management and investment decisions, and sustainability-oriented financial practices. Overlay visualization indicates a temporal shift from early studies emphasizing startup financing and growth models (2019 - 2021) toward more recent themes such as financial resilience, sustainable finance, and digitally enabled financial management (2022-2025). Density visualization further highlights the concentration of influential contributions from developed economies, alongside increasing research participation from emerging and developing regions. Overall, this study offers a comprehensive mapping of the financial knowledge structure within startup ecosystem research and provides valuable theoretical insights and managerial implications for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners.

The thesis establishes three-dimensional synergistic governance model of enterprise group finance. With the theory of systematics, the construction is on the basis of three-dimensional synergistic frameworks called level dimension, content dimension and process dimension. Based on process dimension, we construct the framework of enterprise finical synergistic governance model, collaborating with three effects which are financial strategic synergy, financial resource synergy and financial interest synergy. Therefore, we analyze the elements of the three synergistic effects respectively, and the interaction as Ill as balance relationship among the three synergistic effects. Through the unascertained measurement theory, we build the unascertained evaluation model of enterprise group financial synergistic effects. Empirical analysis shows that the current overall level of enterprise group financial synergistic effects is relatively low. And among the three enterprise financial synergistic effects, enterprise strategic synergy is relatively strong, while financial interest synergy is kind of weak, and financial resource synergy is the worst. Introduction Financial management informatization is a management information system that aims to realize the coordination between finance and business on the basis of modern information technology, so as to adapt to e-commerce business model [1, 2, . This kind of financial information management combines financial management method, concept and modern information technology. At the same time, it makes financial management system, financial accounting report system and accounting system as a whole, and ultimately achieves a high degree of integration of information flow, material flow, business flow and capital flow, as well as the sharing of information resources. By implementing informatization construction on financial management, the enterprises will achieve to process financial information remotely with the application of computer and network technology in financial management. It regards enterprise financial information as its object, which helps to form standardized management of finance gradually, thereby conducting comprehensive and timely information processing of enterprise control, decision-making, management, leadership and so on. At the present stage, however, with the innovation of existing financial management model, how can we find a better way for the transmission process and sharing mode of enterprise financial information? It has a great significance on not only the promotion of efficient management for enterprise financial information, but the increase of modern enterprise management level. This thesis adopts literature research, questionnaire survey, empirical analysis, theoretical reasoning as well as other research methods, so as to solve the key problems of enterprise financial synergy. It reveals the problems of the inherent mechanism and model construction of enterprise financial synergistic governance. In addition, it also shows the problems of evaluation and optimization of enterprise financial synergistic governance effects. The design of synergistic model of enterprise financial management informatization The synergistic effect and evaluation of enterprise financial information. For an enterprise group, there exists coordination and cooperation of external environment, internal resources and stakeholders, in addition, it also has cooperation among its various 2nd International Conference on Electrical, Computer Engineering and Electronics (ICECEE 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 722 sub-systems. In general, during the coordination process of all elements of the system and the subsystems, it will produce simple effect which is different from all kinds of the elements and subsystems, and the overall effect of the system is called synergistic effect (SE):

Purpose: To assess the influence of effective communication on financial management in secondary schools in Meru County, Kenya. Methodology: The study adopted descriptive research design to collect data from 389 secondary schools in Meru County. The respondents were 389 principals and 389 senior teachers. Simple random sampling method was used after the sample size of the schools was obtained by determining 30% of the population. This resulted to 117 principals and 117 senior teachers in 117 secondary schools. The study collected quantitative data through use of questionnaires. The pilot testing was done in Isiolo county where 10% of the sample size was used to determine the pilot population. Reliability was tested through the use of Cronbach alpha while content, criterion and construct validities were determined as well. Descriptive statistics like frequencies, percentages and mean were provided whereas Pearson correlation was used to test the hypothesis of the study. The presentation of the results was done through Tables and explicit explanations was provided. Results: The results revealed that 181(95%) respondents on mean of 4.68 and 179(84%) respondents on mean of 4.42 that decisions made were stronger and improved productivity among staff due to effective communication respectively. However, 158(74%) respondents failed to ascertain that the school did not provide updated information to stakeholders. The Pearson correlation coefficient r=0.572** at α < 0.000 and 99% significance level. This meant that there was a positive influence since the Pearson correlation value in both cases were less than 1 and significance level less than 0.05, hence rejected the null hypothesis by concluding that effective communication had significant influence on financial management in secondary schools. Unique contribution to theory, policy and practice: There were weaknesses in the manner in which principals were communicating information to stakeholders, largely because of capabilities and inefficacies in some cases. Further, there was less communication to staff on various matters as it ought to be. This left room for staff to make false conclusions and spread the same to others as ostensibly coming from the management. It is the recommendation of the study that the principals should put measures to ensure systems are duly updated to foster efficiency. Further the management should come up with schedules of meetings on time so as to allocate effective timelines for communication purposes.

This research aims to test the information technology-based financial management and governance of village government to optimize the village financial management in local government of Indragiri. The research method is done by giving survey questionnaires to 100 of village government employees. A paired sample t-test is used to test the capability of the employees in managing the financial before and after the training. The result shows that there is an increase in capacity in financial management and governance by all the village government employees. The theoretical maximum score from the respondents is 50, and the minimum is 10, so the average score is 30. Based on the data above, before the training, the employee’s understanding scores are below the average score, i.e., 24, 15. After the training, the employee’s understanding increases above the average score, i.e. 38, 77.
 Keywords: Village Government Employees; Training; Financial Governance.

The purpose of the study was to investigate whether provision of security measures by the headteachers as strategy influence retention of girls in community day secondary schools in Mchinji district. The study was triggered by the concerns emanating from the teachers on increase of school dropouts among girls in community day secondary schools in Malawi. The study was anchored on Tinto’s theory of retention. The study employed explanatory sequential mixed method research design. The target population included: the students, teachers, headteachers, education officer and chief elders. The study purposively sampled 15 headteachers, one education officer and five chief elders. Additionally, the researcher sampled 80 teachers and used simple random to sample 315 girls, with a total sample size of 416 (12.4%) of the target population. Quantitative data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software Version 21. The study used descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages to summarize the data and present it in form of tables. Qualitative data were manually analyzed by organizing into themes and interpreted in a narrative form and direct quotes. The findings revealed that community day secondary schools in Mchinji district did not have fences, security guards, hostels, locked gates, doors and windows to increase the security of the students and of the school, an indication that community day secondary schools lacked security measures to retain the students in Mchinji district. The study thus recommended that headteachers should cooperate with the board of management Parent teacher Association (PTA) to make sure that security measures are found in order to retain girls in Community Day Secondary Schools. Keywords: Headteachers’, administrative strategy, provision of security measures. Retention of girls, dropout, Community Day Secondary Schools.