Accountable financial management role of parent members in rural School Governing Bodies

In post-apartheid South Africa, the introduction of School Governing Bodies in 1996 was one of the strategies to decentralise education by devolving some powers to parents, teachers, and learners. The South African Schools Act, Act No 84 of 1996, was enacted to regulate school governance. This regulation required parents to know their roles in the School Governing Bodies. In spite of this, however, relevant literature shows that most parents in rural SGBs continue to lack financial management skills to effectively play this role. Utilising a qualitative research approach within the interpretive paradigm and a case study research design, this study explored the role of parent members of the School Governing bodies in accountable financial management in rural schools. Using the Accountability theoretical frame work as a lens to analyse data from 16 SGB members presiding over finances of six no-fee public ordinary schools, this study found that the participants faced a challenge of understanding English which in this case was used as a medium of communication by the National Department of Education in workshops meant to train newly appointed parent SGB members. It was further found that the language was a barrier to efficient understanding of the roles of these members, even after training. The study recommends that the South African Schools’ Act and all other documents utilised in the training of new SGB members should be first translated into the local language in order to gain efficiency and effectiveness. This should be done to enhance the parents’ understanding of the language used in their training and subsequently play their roles efficiently.