Delegated financial management in Maltese schools : a primary and a post-secondary school compared

Abstract

As title of their study the authors have chosen Delegated Financial Management in Maltese Schools: A Primary and a Post-Secondary School compared. While giving a detailed account of the various steps leading to delegated financial management in Maltese schools, the authors felt it necessary to give a short historical overview of the international scene. They focused their studies on two schools with marked differences - a small junior primary school and a large post-secondary school. This enabled them to carry out a comparative analysis of the effects of decentralization on the fiscal consumption at different levels and to gauge teaching and learning outcomes. The time when the central authority dictated the fiscal consumption of schools is over. Domesticated systems have been replaced by processes of subsidiarity. Thus, schools determine the urgency of needs. A series of long interviews and participant observations helped the authors to form an opinion of the progress achieved and the prescriptive characteristics that are still embedded in the decentralized financial system in education. Ten years after the introduction of delegated financial management to schools, a review of the whole system has to be carried out both at national and school level. At both levels, leaders have to be bold enough to implement both long- and short-term changes. The authors have proposed a number of legal, practical, structural and cultural changes. The authors feel that they may have gone too far with their suggestions, but in good faith and more so with much hope that they honestly look ahead for better outcomes.