About 400 Secondary School principals in Makueni County are undergoing a 3-day training on financial management in a bid to equip them with skills to help them manage funds in their institutions, the area County Director of Education (CDE) Mr Charles Nyakundi has said.
Nyakundi disclosed that the principals were undergoing training on budgeting, auditing, procurement, financial reporting and accounting in three different venues, namely Makueni Boys High, Moi Girls in Makindu and Tawa Hall in Mbooni.
“The training is meant to improve how they handle schools’ funds. This has made it necessary to equip them with skills to ensure proper planning, accountability and transparency in use of the monies,” said Nyakundi at Makueni Boys High School, where he opened the training officially.
At Makueni Boys, there were principals from four sub-counties, namely Kathozweni (38), Nzaui (56), Kilungu (24) and Makueni (45). Junior School Principals underwent similar training from Friday to Sunday.
The training, running from Friday to Sunday, has been organized by the Ministry of Education jointly with Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI), which is providing trainers.
During the training, KEMI Trainer Desire Mobisa urged the principals to know how they manage the limited resources at their schools, taking into consideration the current and future needs to promote responsible planning and decision-making at the institutions.
Mobisa warned principals against starting big projects that would demand a lot of money to complete and instead advised them to initiate short-term projects that would need less money to be done.
“The government aims at equipping principals with knowledge to be able to enhance the running of schools, especially in spending of funds. They should be able to provide data whenever it is required, either on expenditure, reporting, auditing or bookkeeping records,” said Mobisa.
Another trainer, Winny Nyamari, urged the principals to understand the legal and regulatory instruments governing Public Finance Management.
“You should know how to apply the legal and regulatory framework in management on school funds and also be able to understand the consequences of non-compliance,” Ms Nyamari pointed out.
By Francis Muuo and Joshua Musomba
