The Relevance of Budget Preparation in School Administration

Abstract

Nigerian educational system is characterized by declining resources, rising costs and greater awareness for public accountability. These conditions make the management of the available human and material resources a social imperative. It demands a periodic preparation of the school budget. This paper therefore examines the concept of budgeting, its advantages in our school system and suggests some accounting requirements which are aimed at making the preparation of a budget less cumbersome and more realistic. It highlights four types of budgets: Zero-Base Budgeting (ZBB), Programme and Performance Budgeting, Planning, Programming and Budgeting Systems (PPBS) and Line- Item or Incremental Budgeting. This would enable the school administrators to avoid white elephant projects and use the lean available resources in achieving desirable targets. Indeed the school budget is the Head Teacher’s '‘stethoscope" and without it the school administration flounders, the paper observes.