By MAKOKWA CLARA MUYENDEKWA
SCHOOLS have been warned not to go against the education for all grants guidelines and Public finance management regulations.
Permanent Secretary for Administration in Ministry of education, Noriana Muneku, sounded the warning in Choma on Friday when she launched guidelines for utilization of funds for schools under the education for all policy.
She warned that failure to uphold the guidelines will attract queries as they were formed for purposes of thorough utilization of school grants.
“Accountability of resources in schools has remained a challenge as this can be observed in the audit queries from the Auditor General’s report,” said Ms Muneku
She added that the hope is to see guidelines resulting in accountability of utilization of funds after making guidelines through a consultative process.
Ms Muneku also reminded school representatives that funding for early childhood to secondary school level had been remitted on January 3, 2022.
She warned schools not to charge parents in any form, saying she had received reports of teachers charging pupils in different ways.
We have heard of schools charging parents by forcing them to buy school uniforms from the schools and buying cleaning materials but such acts will not go unpunished,” said Ms Muneku.
She stressed that there was need to change the landscape in education as investing in the sector improves social stability and brings about long term economic development.
Ms Muneku expressed optimism that the country will uphold commitments such as the fourth Sustainable Development Goals which seeks to have all people have primary education.
She also said Government seeks to give equal opportunity for learning through the education for all policy especially to the less privileged children.
She explained that this is why government had increased the Early Childhood Education grant and given Secondary school bursary through the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to support the less privileged at secondary level.
Among other things in the Guidelines for utilization of funds for schools under the education for all policy is the 20 percent allocation to emoluments for workers not paid by government such as general workers and volunteering teachers.
