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Week 11
Ethnography: Financial Viability
Themes: Financial Progressions to Found and Sustain a School
Preparation
  1. Read: Orangi, Karachi: http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/13302/is-education-for-karachi-slum-dwellers-a-waste-of-time/
  2. Read: Y. P. Aggarwal & Sunita Chugh (2003). “Learning Achievement of Slum Children in Delhi” http://www.nuepa.org/Download/Publications/Occasional%20Paper-34schugh.pdf
  3. Read: Stuart Cameron, “Education in Slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh”: http://www.create-rpc.org/pdf_documents/UKFIETstuartcameronpaper.pdf
Forum Discussion

Online Discussion

 		Select Forums from the Course Links navigation menu. After reviewing the information about the discussion forums, select and engage Topic #5.

Starting any business venture involves an ongoing progression of hard financial decisions.  There are simple tools that can be used for both the preplanning and ongoing management of a slum school.  Come back next class with answers to these questions.
  • How familiar are you with cash flows, balance sheets and income/expenditure sheets?  See if you can review the yearly financial statements of the school over the last three years.  What questions does this generate? 
  • What are the critical elements in terms of cash flows in a school (e.g. when is there lots of money and what time of the year is there no money?
  •  How do private schools differ to public schools in this?  
  • What level of reserves does your school try to keep set aside?  
  • What level of school fees makes the school viable?  
  • What level of salary levels makes the school viable?  
  • Who makes these decisions?  
  • How does the board hold the principal accountable?
  • How does the principal supervice the CFO?
  • What checks and balances are there in terms of spending allowances? What freedoms are there to spend?  
  • How does the school make sure there are capital resources for new buildings?
  • What is its policy in terms of debt?
  • How does the school district control these issues?
  • Does the department of education have a set of strict guidelines to follow to get a school set up? Do they work?
  • Do the private schools also follow them?
  • How does the school cope with the very poor?
  • Who makes decisions and how about scholarships? 
Project
 Select Assignments from the Course Links navigation menu and then Project # 3, School Ethnography