Abstract
This study appraised the extent of implementation of financial
management guidelines of state colleges of education in South Eastern
Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. The
population of the study comprised of 239 finance officers (98 bursary
staff and 141 unit heads respectively) from four state colleges of
Education in the area. There were two research questions and two null
hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analyzed using
mean, standard deviation and t-test. The findings of the study include,
among others, that the principal officers usually involved all spending
units in the process of budget preparation. There was no significant
difference between the mean ratings of bursary staff and unit heads on
the adoption of financial management guidelines in the area of budget
implementation. Four recommendations were made, including that
State Colleges of Education should prepare their annual estimates based
on the anticipated level of capital and recurrent grants.