Monitoring the financial
status of universities
Prof.Dr.Kriengsak Chareonwongsak
Senior Fellow,
Harvard Univerisity’s Center for Business and Government
Universities are
institutions offering the highest
level of education in a nation. They fulfill the critical role of producing graduates,
knowledge, research, and academic services. Therefore, guaranteeing educational
quality and ongoing development within universities must be a government’s first
priority. But improving the quality of higher education requires plentiful resources.
Each year the Thai government must stretch its budget even further to try to
meet the needs of higher education. Each university must also relentlessly
improve its financial management systems and develop new funding sources just
to keep up with rising academic standards.
England is one
example of a nation that already gives high priority to monitoring the financial
status of each university, recognizing the government’s role in
preserving the quality of education in its universities. Therefore, when the
financial health of any university is found to be weak, the Brits realize that
the quality of education at that university is also most likely to be faltering,
lowering popular demand for that institution. In turn, a lower demand for that
university will affect the income earned from higher educational services each
year. Hence, the British people demand that their universities maintain a
high educational quality on par with international standards by submitting their
financial status to rigorous monitoring and accountability. The public in
Britain wants to know if the financial status of a university is shaky and, if
so, how shaky.
Although the English
government requires each university to stand on its own financial legs,
the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), a government
agency, closely monitors the financial status of each university. This organization
oversees annual university budgets and monitors each university’s financial
status throughout the year. HEFCE sees that higher education in England is renown
throughout the world for its quality. This reputation helps support the British
economy, so its popularity must be maintained.
In addition to
good financial management, universities should have low financial risk.
HEFCE monitors how well universities maintain their overall financial health.
Then HEFCE will rank British universities in order, from those with the most risk
to those with the least risk and those with no risk at all. This information
is released to the public in accordance with Britain’s access to information
laws. This motivates universities to diligently attend to their financial
matters.
Some British universities
incur financial risk by having a weak budget or unsustainable marketing plans.
However, when a university is at risk, HEFCE will employ various strategies to
support the university. Each university is given different types of support.
Some receive advice or additional funding needed to resolve the risk. Prof.
David Eastwood, HEFCE Chief Executive, said that bringing a university with
shaky financial status onto solid ground normally takes three years. Quite a
number of universities with very unstable finances have improved, and the
results have been presented to the public.
Thai universities
have much to learn in this regard. In Thailand, fiscal accountability is
responsibility of each university and not of the government. Research conducted
by Prof. Dr. Boonserm Weesakul and his associates (“Financing of Higher
Education,” 2003), under the jurisdiction of the Office of Educational Council
(OEC) discovered that in many universities the academic calendar does not
correspond with the fiscal year, making it difficult to reconcile expenses with
university income. Therefore, it is almost impossible to get the overall
financial figures for those universities. In addition, financial management
systems, that of the governmental budget and that of the nongovernmental
budget, have different standard. University accounting systems look at cash figures,
so deciphering real operation costs is one huge nightmare. Faculty and
department finances also cannot be fully revealed. Finances for special projects
are out of control, and many projects are set up for personal benefit. No
resources are allocated towards academic excellence, something unheard of in private
universities.
Moreover, private
universities, which are not under government jurisdiction, have more authority
to manage their expenses and freely fund raise on their own. So if these
universities fail to monitor their finances, they run great risk that some
groups within the university may take unfair advantage over other groups, jeopardizing
that university’s quality of education and driving student tuition fees upwards.
In private universities, if university finance officers have problems or if the
quality of education comes into question and the government is not informed on
time, students will be directly affected.
I find it interesting
that England has established an organization to monitor the financial viability
of its universities. Therefore, relevant Thai organizations should give
importance to this issue. More study is needed to find out how to improve the
financial structures of Thai universities. This would benefit Thai higher
education overall, Thai students, and Thai society at large. In addition, each
university should be required to present a financial report to the government
on an annual basis. This should be supported by the law. As Thai tax payers, we
deserve better financial accountability on the part of our public universities.
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น