Nöbetçi Eczaneler
Inefficient Financial Management in Schools: A Personal Testimony
From Childhood to Professional Experience
My village, Bölücekkaya Köyü, Kıbrıscık district in Bolu was where I spent my childhood. Later, I had educational experiences in Bolu and Istanbul. Even in my last year of high school, I used to go to school wearing worn-out shoes.
For the first 18 years of my life, I didn’t have sportswear, sneakers, a jacket, a coat, or a bicycle. I mostly ate dry bread, tarhana (a traditional Turkish soup), cheese, yogurt, potatoes, and onions. I didn’t have a desk, so I used to study while lying on the floor, under the light of a candle, gas lamp, or ordinary lamp. I used my pencils until they were only 1 cm long… When the pencils became too short, my grandfather would make me a new handle from small tree branches.
I worked as a teacher or administrator in 10 different schools in cities like Edirne, Tokat, Manisa, Bolu, Artvin, Lefkoşa, Zonguldak, and Ankara for 32 years. I retired from the Ministry of National Education (MEB) two years ago.
Accountability and Transparency in School Financial Management
During my time as a teacher and then as an administrator, I was unaware of the purpose of the “school parent association”. The administrators did not provide clear information on these matters.
The school used to collect mandatory “donations” (fees) from people under various names such as registration, student certificate, diploma, exam, chalk, paint, and mastery certificate. Receipts were issued for these donations. However, having a receipt for a donation or payment does not guarantee that the collected money was spent correctly.
From 2015 to 2021, I served as a school administrator. During this time, I had the opportunity to review all the income and expenditure reports of the school.
If I had the authority now, I would remove 90% of the school administrators from their positions. I would stop all schools from dealing with any kind of financial matters, even as small as 1 Turkish Lira.
If the Ministry of National Education wanted to, it could centrally manage the fuel, maintenance, stationery, and food needs of each school based on the number of students, departments, type of school, environmental conditions, economic circumstances, and infrastructure.
School administrators involving themselves in procurement, sales, tender management, and budget tracking is not the correct approach. The Ministry of Education has knowledge of the material needs of each school, and products can be sent periodically according to their requirements.
Due to my expertise in electrical, electronic, and computer-related matters, I have visited many schools in the cities and towns where I worked to “conduct inspections and address small malfunctions”. I can write pages about the waste, extravagance, and lack of manners I witnessed in these places.
When I first started as an administrator at a vocational high school in 2015, I personally dismantled 6 large air conditioners and moved them to the storage room. The monthly electricity consumption was 6000 kWh. I also replaced 350 old-fashioned 40-watt fluorescent lamps with 3-5-7-9-10-12-watt LED lamps. This reduced the monthly consumption to 2000 kWh.
I had small sensor-controlled water devices installed on the faucets. This reduced the monthly water consumption from around 300 cubic meters to 60 cubic meters.
For years, I reached out to about 10,000 companies, foundations, associations, and organizations via email. I explained the conditions of the school and sourced equipment, educational tools, books, and clothing from hundreds of philanthropists.
Issues with School Financial Practices
Out of the 57,000 schools in our country, around 7,000 are very small and may not have a “school-parent association”. In the remaining 50,000 schools, there are structures in the form of associations that may raise money from parents.
While there are certainly well-intentioned, transparent, and accountable individuals among them, most of them have the authority to spend money on expenses, invoicing, document preparation, and favoritism towards luxurious goods.
Schools with large numbers of students, which use their grounds as parking lots and earn high rent from their canteens, accumulate large sums of money.
A few years ago, the director of a vocational high school with 3,500 students in Kadıköy, Istanbul, told me… “The courtyard of our school is next to a very famous hospital. Thanks to the parking lot and canteen, we can build a new school every year with the money we earn.” His office was like the main hall of the Dolmabahçe Palace…
A computer with a 17-inch screen, 2-4 GB of RAM, and a 250 GB hard drive can meet all the needs of a school. However, the PCs used in schools are equivalent to those used at NASA.
9 years ago, there was a huge printing machine with a 4-color laser toner at the school where I worked. The toners alone cost 350 Euros. I immediately had it moved to the storage. The printing cost was 5 times higher…
There is absolutely no need for canteens in schools. They sell all kinds of unhealthy foods and drinks containing artificial sugars, carcinogenic fats, excessive salt, MSG, high fructose corn syrup, and addictive substances. Only carbonated drinks and chips are forbidden. The operators and those who earn rental income from these canteens will strongly oppose and attack this.
Conscious parents send their children to school with nutritious food. On the other hand, lazy parents are slowly poisoning their children by giving them 10-50 TL for unhealthy snacks.
The Way Forward
In conclusion, you can donate items such as computers, trash cans, pens, notebooks, A4 paper, detergent, clothing, printers, doorknobs, keys, sockets, plugs, paint, curtains, chairs, and stools to schools. However, do not give cash. As it is mostly spent on unnecessary, luxury items.
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