3. CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
3.5 Funding Models
Wiley (2007) defines sustainability as the ability of a project to continue its operations. The idea of continuity is critical in that sustainability should include the idea of accomplishing goals in addition to ideas related to prolonged existence. In short, in the present context it is an educational resource project‟s on-going ability to meet its goals.
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Koohang and Harman (2007, p. 538) in their discussion of the concept of advancing sustainability of educational resources say:
“… [an] attempt to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environment both now and into the indefinite future. It relates to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society, as well as the non-human environment. It is intended to be a means of configuring civilisation and human activity so that society, its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems; and planning and acting for the ability to maintain these deals in a very long term. Sustainability affects every level of organisation, from the local neighbourhood to the entire planet.”
Thus, it is wise for schools to invest in sustaining educational resources. According to Seltzer (2014) sustainability has streams vital for the survival of an organisation including institutional sustainability, where the organisation has a strong, flexible structure, and accountable, transparent governance practices. This allows the organisation to respond to the shifting priorities of its supporters and to new responsibilities towards clients, while creating a positive work climate for its staff. Financial sustainability is when the organisation draws on various sources of revenue, allowing itself to support its on-going efforts and undertake some new initiatives (Seltzer, 2014). In this case, schools should secure enough revenue for operation, respond carefully to the needs of learners and react to the entire changes of the economy regarding institutional and financial practices that can bring about effectiveness and continuity to the whole education system with regard to educational resources.
Yun (2010) argues that sustainable resource mobilisation is a strategic process that is grounded in effective organisational management, brought to life by creative communication and maintained through nurturing stakeholder relationship. This reinforces the assertion by Downes (2007) that resource mobilisation should be considered a core institutional function, rather than just a string of ad-hoc activities. International labour organisation (ILO), (2012) and Ewards and Kane (2014) say that it is not possible to provide resources necessary and keep pace with costs without bringing in money. This can be done by meeting the real costs of a project with resources other than money. It is worth noting that sustainability is not only about financial resources but also about incentives and motivation generally. In this study I viewed
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sustainability as the ability of a school to continue its operation, including accomplishing education goals, expansion of its resource base and creating positive relationships with its environment. Downes (2007) notes that a variety of projects started in schools originate from governments, foundations and organisations, groups, and from individuals. So, all these must be financially supported in order to continue their existence. Ada and Ada (2013) are of the view that correct budgeting has to do with prudent management of fiscal resource allocation, office space and equipment. Even ILO (2012) supports the notion that to utilise the resource mobilisation and sustainability strategy there is need for an organisation to build capacity of the institutions and partners that coordinate and deliver services, to enable them to leverage resources from available sources including local communities, the private sector, decentralised government budgets, national and international NGOs, and other United Nation (UN) and international organisations and development partners. These strategies can be applied in schools as well. This implies that when schools expand their resources they can focus on other incentives rather than the finance that comes from government, for their continued survival.
ILO (2012) adds that the implementation of a change project requires substantial amounts of resources, both financial and non-financial.
Downes (2007) and Wiley (2007) presented studies on project sustainability with various funding models.
3.5.1 Downes (2007) Potential Funding Models
Endowment model: in this model, the project obtains base funding. The fund administrator manages the base funding and the project is sustained from interest earned on that fund. For example, this can be raised through subscriptions from a variety of charitable foundations generating in interest for the firm. Membership model: a combination of interested organisations is invited to contribute a certain sum. Members contribute and in turn are granted a set of privileges, including access to roadmap decisions and documentation. This generates the operating revenue for the educational resources of the organisation, for example distribution of textbooks in schools. Donations model: a project deemed worthy of support by the wider community requests and receives donations. Those donations may be managed by a non-profit making organisation, like a school, which may apply to operating expenses or, may seek to establish an endowment if funds are sufficient. Such donations are often supplemented with purchases of other products like property in a school situation. Conversion model: this has to do with giving something away for free and then convert the consumer of the freebie to a
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paying customer. This is because there is a limit to the amount of the resources that the donation model can bring. Subscribers receive services such as installation and support or advanced features of equipment. This means schools can benefit by creating partnerships with suppliers of resources and enjoy the after sales service support they can offer for certain equipment.
Contributor-pay model: contributors pay for the cost of maintaining the contribution, and the provider thereafter, makes the contribution available for free. The charges for this process are met by funding bodies, who calculate it to represent a certain percentage of the annual expenditure. Sponsorship model: open access that is available in most homes free, for example, radio and television. Various companies can support projects on sponsorship basis, often forming partnership with educational institutions. Institutional model: an institution assumes responsibility for resources initiative. It is based on the conviction that the dissemination of knowledge and information can open new doors to the powerful benefits of education for humanity around the world. Funding for the project represents a part of the institutions‟
programme, justified as constituting a part of its organisational mission. Governmental model:
this represents direct funding from government agencies for resources, for example, United Nations Organisations and Micro project for Swaziland. Partnerships and exchanges: they play an important role or potential role in the development of resources networks. Such partnerships are often more or less ad hoc and liberal. Yun (2010) have the same assertion that through partnership an organisation initiates, builds and maintains long-term relationships with like- minded donors and institutions. The proposition for this study was that secondary schools can engage in various modes of funding to secure more resources in addition to the regular budgeted ones by government. This can lead to continuity of education and effective management of educational resources in Swaziland.
3.5.2 Wiley (2007) Potential Funding models
Replacement model: this is educational content stored, disseminated, and re-used through the replacement and the use of other technology software and infrastructure such as virtual learning environments, and proprietary data repositories. Since educational institutions spend significant amounts for these replaced management systems, the cost savings resulting from their discontinued use can be employed to fund other resources. Foundation model: as education institutions expand to a significant size, it can seek on-going funding from foundations, philanthropic institutions, professional societies, trade or industry groups, individual firms,
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governmental and/or non-governmental agencies that are focused on this particular niche. This model can be implemented by identifying an underserved segment and focus on serving that segment thus creating a differentiated product. Segmentation model: this model relies on the idea that while providing access to all the educational content to users, the school can provide
“value-added” services to specific user segments and charge them for the services. Examples of such specific services that could be offered to schools are: sales of paper copies organised around and consulting services to provide custom education to corporate clients. Voluntary support model: A revenue model based on voluntary support emulates fund-raising methods used by National Radio, Television and other media outlets in the country. These media organisations can run fund-raising campaigns to raise money from conscientious users to financially support school operation.
These funding models can go a long way in assisting Swazi schools to secure enough material and physical resources. Since most of the school facilities become outdated, it means that schools can take advantage of the funding institutions to replace such resources and get modern ones in an economic way (Wiley, 2007). This can be done through the fund raising efforts to be done by the schools.
There is much that the funding institutions can learn by watching the sustainability of the educational resource initiatives. Some funding may be provided by organisations that see the school as constituting part of their mission or a free distribution that may promote or support different objectives of education. In some instances, the resource providers may believe that schools are important enough and worth funding and then offer them revenue models. Some resource providers may obtain support of third parties still in favour of the school. Examples of some of the resources needed for the school system which the resource providers may contribute include computers, furniture and vehicles for use by the organisation. But sustainability would still depend on the economies and the objectives of the provider (Wiley, 2007). This suggests that schools as learning institutions can adopt as many of such models as possible. This can help reduce most of the major costs of educational projects associated with limited fund sourcing and administration roles of schools. The revenue models when employed successfully can contribute to individual school payments and expenditure. Therefore, the development of school performance rests on the administrators and those they lead‟s commitment to purchasing and maintaining school educational resources.
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The funding models served as one of the theoretical lenses of this study. This is because one common feature of the funding models for school management is to do with efficiency and sustainability. The funding theories put clearly the aspects of the external and internal environments which encourage resources mobilisation. This way it means that the funding models can be applied collaboratively with other theories in order to reach the success of our education institutions in supplying enough resources but at reasonable costs. This can help school administrators to explore various strategies of curbing any challenges relating to educational resource mobilisation shortages that may exist in Swaziland secondary schools.