THE MANAGEMENT OF BAD DEBTS IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS: CASE OF NELSON MANDELA BILINGUAL COMPREHENSIVE COLLEGE(NEMBICCOL)

ABSTRACT

This project studied the management of bad and doubtful debts by Cameroonian educational institutions. It noted problems associated with the wide spread development of bad account by schools as being occasioned by so many changes that are unfolding as a result of the deregulation of the Cameroonian educational system. It viewed the incidences of bad debts as one of the greatest problems facing both old and new educational institutions in Cameroon today with adverse consequences on their profitability level.

This project traced the origin of bad debt to a number of factors some which may be internal, external or by act of God. e.g. the death of the owner of business. Carelessness on the part of  Finance department and his inability to interpret and respond promptly to warning signals may cause an untold loss in addition collusion by financial secretary and absence of a clearly defined guideless by schools may be responsible for high debt. It is even difficult to identify control once a facility has been agreed by management

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 

The extension of credit facilities by the Educational Institutes (EI) including Microfinance institutions (MFIs), banking institutions (BI), credit unions, and financial Nongovernmental organization (FNGOs), is a major activity carried on. Bad debt management is a key driver of financial performance for all educational institutions, but it also presents a major challenge with the risk and the cost of non-payment needed to balance the opportunity costs. In the case of NEMBICCOL bad debt is the situation where the establishment believes that a debtor is unable or unwilling to pay the amount they owe and the institution will never be able to recover the money

  Bad debt management techniques have a far reaching influence going well beyond control of non-recoverable income and should be the integral part of optimizing sponsors acquisition development and relation

A bad debt according to PETER TEMPLE, is an amount that is written off by the business a loss to the business and classified as an expense because the bad debt owed to the business is unable to be collected and all reasonable efforts have been exhausted to collect the amount owed, also the accounts receivable that will likely remain uncollectible and will be written off. Bad debts also appear as an expense on the company’s income statement reducing net income.

In general, colleges make an estimate of bad debts expenses that might be incurred and make bad debts allowance since it is likely that not all of their debtors will pay them in full.

Bad debts occasionally called account expenses is a monetary amount owed to a creditor that is unlikely to be paid or which the creditor is not willing to take action to collect for various reasons, often due to the debtors not having money to pay

Accounting sources advice that full amount of a bad debt be written off in the profit and loss account 

Some schools will have noticed a change to the accounting treatment of bad debt at the year-end. Previously this issue was dealt with outside individual schools cost centres, and schools were only affected at the point of a debt being written-off. Some issues have arisen where schools were unaware of their level of debt outstanding and therefore the change in treatment is designed to address this problem. For those schools affected, a charge will have appeared against code 149500 (Bad debt W/O A/C) in the 2015-2016 accounts and this represents the total debt outstanding that is more than 2 years old. This has then been credited back to the school in the 2016-2017 accounts so that the school is no worse off overall but provides a cautious approach (in line with the ‘prudence’ accounting concept) to the risk of the debt remaining uncollected

1.2 PROBLEMS OF THE STUDY

With many schools in large proportion given having parents and students who owe them. The school is therefore, taking the risk some of the customers may never pay back the debt. This is normal business risk and such bad debts are normal business or running expenses. In the past years we discovered that NEMBICCOL have been suffering from the issue of bad debt which is caused by parents not paying their children’s fee and we found out that the success of NEMBICCOL requires a good accounting system in other to reduce the rate of bad debt. The major focus of NEMBICCOL is to provide education to the citizens of Cameroon and the experience has shown that NEMBICCOL faces the problem of bad debt which leads this institution to be eroded with debts 

However some of the past studies have tried to find out the reasons for bad debts and discovered situations like poor appraisal, week monitoring and management of debt and trying to suggest how to overcome the problem of bad debts. The study is aimed at exploring reasons behind bad debt in this institution and finally recommending a sample policy for debt collection

Bad debt will negatively affect financial position of the institution if proper policies are not put in place for debt collection procedures

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION

• How do secondary schools manage their bad debt?
• What are the causes of bad debts?
• Problems faced by NEMBICCOL in the domain of the management of bad debt?
• What strategies can be used to minimize the debts in NEMBICCOL to identify the causes of bad debts?
• To examine the problems that may be faced by NELSON MANDELA BILINGUAL COMPREHENSIVE COLLEGE (NEMBICCOL) in the domain of the management of bad debts.
• What strategies are used by NELSON MANDELA BILINGUAL COMPREHENSIVE COLLEGE (NEMBICCOL) in the management of bad debts?

•  OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

• The general objective of this study was to access the ways in which NEMBICCOL can manage its bad debts and the factors that influence the non repayment of bad debt in NEMBICCOL
• To examine the level of bad debts of NEMBICCOL COLLEGE
• To access the factors causing bad debts to NEMBICCOL
• To access whether the aspect used by NEMBICCOL to force debtors to pay their debt is suitable

HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY

The study will be carried out through the test of two hypotheses

Bad debts management has no significance effect on educational institutes

H1. Bad debts management has a significance effect on educational institutes