The DBE entered into an agreement with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) to establish a SGB support project aimed at placing qualified graduates from TVET colleges in public schools. This agreement will assist in the preparation of financial statements and the development of Guidelines for the preparation of financial statements in public schools. The DBE and SAICA aspire to pilot the placement of graduates for an eighteen month period in 100 public ordinary schools across all provinces.

Provincial Education Departments (PEDS) will be provided with an opportunity to select the schools and TVET graduates from their respective provinces.  Graduates will be recruited from the province in which they will be performing their internship programme. Funding will be made available through the Skills Development Levy in consultation with the DBE and various provinces. SAICA together with the DBE, developed a Guideline for preparation of financial statements in public schools. This initiative addresses the need for a consistent set of financial statements that are required to be determined by the Member of the Executive Council for a province as per Section 42 (b) of the South African Schools Act.

Ms Devoshum Moodley-Veera, Director: Sector Audit Outcomes, highlighted that “the non-existence of guidelines for the preparation of financial statements provided limitations for auditing the financial statements. Auditors are unable to audit against any procedures or standards and some auditors decline auditing the financial statements of schools. At times, auditors and bookkeepers play a dual role which is in contravention with the Auditing Profession Act. Some schools are provided with disclaimers or limitation of scope when audited by registered auditors due to the non-existence of guidelines.

Sector Audit Outcomes therefore invite comments on the Guidelines. The deadline for comments is 09 June 2018. All comments and queries should be submitted to: Email: Moodley.d@dbe.gov.za or Tel no: 012 357 3857.