APPROXIMATELY 50 institutions have been selected to participate in a pilot under the Digital Transformation for School Management Project.

The initiative, which will be implemented on a phased basis, is funded by a US$200,000 Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) grant.

Minister of Education and Youth Fayval Williams says about 20 per cent of the national budget goes towards education, noting that “we need to have a better handle on the spend to ensure… it’s going to the right places and we are having the results that we should have”.

“The general objective of this technical cooperation is to assist the ministry to develop processes and systems to capture and analyse detailed school-level income, expenditure and student management data to support effective management [of school resources],” Williams said.

She was speaking during the IDB’s financial management pilot school sensitisation forum at the bank’s country office in St Andrew on January 18.

Williams noted that the project will benefit Jamaica by way of implementation into the school system.

“As managers in your own right I implore you to apply the skills being taught in the way you conduct the nation’s business. Once the pilot is completed we will move to a phased implementation of this project into our primary schools and secondary schools. This will add to the digitisation that is underway in the education system,” she stated.

Williams said the Accountant General’s Department is also involved in the project.

The project objectives include making the recording and management of day-to-day financial transactions easy, electronic, and efficient; providing a centralised platform to view and manage financial data in schools, educational regions, and at the central ministry; and developing operating procedures that will allow for the timely use of financial data to make informed decisions about funding allocations.