School grants

Community schools qualify for government school supply grants provided they qualify, register, and follow regulations. The government specifies how and what to spend the money on. For example, an instruction might be the school should use 35% of the sum for math and science books. The school then submits receipts and a report.

I’ve been looking into the specifics of the procedure because some of the community school supported by my organisation have not been receiving the grant. It turns out that the district level officer distributes funds on his/her own discretion. In some districts, if the school did not sufficiently report the use of last year’s funds, they are off the list and no longer get funding. It seems that once off the list, it is impossible to get back on. Yes, sometimes it is the fault of the school for misusing funds. However, sometimes it is a procedural error like not filling the form in correctly or not getting the requested type of receipt. When a school become a registered community school, the district education office is supposed to train the school in using and reporting on the grant. Unfortunately, in some districts, the government has not been holding training sessions.

A perspective I heard today is that by not holding the training, schools make errors and the district office can then take the grant back. Training people gives schools a chance to use the grant correctly and meet some needs of the school. But through training, fewer school will make errors and the office will have less opportunity to capitalise and take back money for their own use. Umm… should I say it… corruption.