abstract:
As one of the four cornerstones of university governance, the internal audit of universities is the key factor for the normal operation of university governance. On the basis of discussing the relationship between university governance and internal audit, this paper emphasizes the role of internal audit in supervision, evaluation, consultation and risk prevention, so as to improve the university governance structure, enhance the adaptability of universities to the market environment and improve the quality of running schools.
Key words:
Internal Audit of University Governance Structure
At present, China's colleges and universities implement the principal responsibility system under the leadership of the party Committee, but in fact, the phenomenon that colleges and universities are controlled by insiders is more serious. In this context, if there is no strong supervision mechanism, it will lead to the ineffectiveness, unfairness, randomness and blindness of the decision-making results. However, at present, university administrators have very limited understanding of the effectiveness of internal audit in universities. Therefore, it is of great significance to further understand the relationship between university governance and internal audit and strengthen managers' understanding of the key role of internal audit in university governance.
First, the status quo of internal audit in university governance
With the deepening of the reform of the educational system in colleges and universities, the scale of running colleges and universities in China has been expanding and the investment in education has been increasing. Higher education has entered the era of rapid development, and the autonomy of running a school is more flexible, which leads to the diversification and complexity of economic activities in colleges and universities [1-2]. However, during the transformation period of economic activities in colleges and universities, the economic management of colleges and universities can't keep up with the pace of transformation, especially in recent years, corruption incidents in colleges and universities have occurred frequently, which has seriously affected the overall reputation of colleges and universities. In view of the new characteristics of the transformation of economic activities in colleges and universities, colleges and universities should re-examine and position the internal audit work and update their concepts in time. At this stage, the internal audit work in university governance in China mainly has the following defects:
1. Lack of understanding of internal audit work in colleges and universities
In terms of institutional setup, some colleges and universities merge audit departments and supervision institutions, and some colleges and universities directly merge audit and financial institutions into two departments, without actual auditors; In fact, the audit departments of some universities do not perform the function of economic supervision, but regard it as the reception department to cope with the superior audit; Some colleges and universities temporarily put redundant accounting personnel in the audit department. The above situation is not conducive to the independent performance of audit responsibilities by audit departments, nor to the healthy development of colleges and universities, which is contrary to the real role of audit institutions [3].
2. The traditional financial audit can no longer meet the development requirements of modern education.
The traditional internal audit of colleges and universities focuses on the inspection and supervision of various financial activities of colleges and universities to ensure the normal operation of colleges and universities, which belongs to the category of post supervision. Its function and behavior are mainly to examine the rationality and legality of financial revenue and expenditure and expenses in colleges and universities, and to play a supervisory role in order to achieve the purpose of checking mistakes and correcting abuses. At present, most of the audits carried out in colleges and universities in China belong to compliance audits, whose main purpose is to prevent and reduce all kinds of irregularities through audit supervision, which is a guarantee service of traditional internal audit. With the continuous development of higher education, the affiliated institutions such as university logistics are gradually reforming, so it is imperative to adjust the internal audit function of universities.
3. Independent internal audit institutions are difficult to retain.
The general office of the Ministry of Education clearly stipulates that colleges and universities should further establish and improve the internal audit system, keep the audit institutions and audit teams stable and constantly strengthen, and give full play to the role of internal audit. However, at present, many internal audit institutions in colleges and universities are still co-located or merged, which is not conducive to the embodiment of audit priorities, and is not conducive to ensuring the full implementation of funds, time, auditor arrangements and case handling. Therefore, it is difficult to ensure the independence of the internal audit work, which in turn affects the objectivity, impartiality and authority of the internal audit work and makes the audit work unable to really play its due role.
4. The audit task is incompatible with the audit power.
The surge of economic business in colleges and universities is accompanied by the expansion of audit items and contents year by year. On the one hand, the school hopes that the audit department will shoulder the heavy burden and add tasks to effectively supervise the economic business of the school; On the other hand, in the face of increasing tasks, there is a shortage of auditors, especially high-quality auditors. Therefore, the weak audit force in colleges and universities is difficult to adapt to the heavy and complicated audit tasks, which is also one of the common problems in internal audit in colleges and universities.
Second, the effectiveness of internal audit in university governance
1. Internal audit is conducive to improving the governance structure of colleges and universities.
The internal audit of colleges and universities includes two aspects, namely, detailed project audit at the micro level and long-term planned audit at the macro level. On the one hand, through the audit of specific projects, put forward audit opinions on the problems existing in the audited projects, and solve individual problems at the micro level from a local perspective; On the other hand, through the audit of the strategic development activities of colleges and universities, we regularly and systematically review the strategic objectives of colleges and universities, find out the areas that need improvement, and put forward strategic opinions and suggestions to college administrators [4].
2. The supervisory role of internal audit
The internal audit of colleges and universities participates in the governance of colleges and universities in a relatively independent capacity, which can objectively supervise the economic activities of colleges and universities before, during and after, find out the problems existing in their management in time and deal with them effectively. In addition, internal audit can effectively restrain and supervise the management to disclose financial information by auditing the financial statements of colleges and universities [4]. This paper expounds the supervisory role of internal audit in financial activities and capital construction projects in colleges and universities with specific examples of auditing in colleges and universities. From 2000 to 2008, a university in Chongqing * * * completed 277 financial audit projects, with a total audit fund of 1040407 yuan, which promoted income increase and expenditure reduction of 7.34 million yuan; There were 1882 audit projects for infrastructure renovation, and the amount submitted for review was 693.64 million yuan, a decrease of 47.48 million yuan, with a reduction rate of 6.85%, which saved a lot of construction funds for the school. During the period of 1999-200 1, a university in Hunan audited 73 contracts1,involving an amount of 654.38+98 million yuan, saving 25,844,200 yuan for the school, and completing the audit project of infrastructure maintenance project158/kloc-in four years. The financial audit of 1 12 was completed, with an audit amount of 3.435 billion yuan, and the amount of violations found was 16 18 1 ten thousand yuan.
3. Evaluation function of internal audit
An important role of internal audit is to make a fair evaluation of the relevant economic activities that have occurred, and the focus of internal audit in colleges and universities is to evaluate, supervise and manage the business activities of colleges and universities. That is, to evaluate the operating conditions and operating results of the relevant central leaders in the process of fulfilling their economic responsibilities, to supervise and monitor whether the operation of agency activities entrusted by internal leaders is legal, reasonable, economical, effective and feasible [5], and to put forward relevant opinions and suggestions on the problems existing in management, so that relevant leaders can manage the various business activities of the school more effectively.
4. Advisory role of internal audit
The internal audit institutions in colleges and universities have the advantages of strong independence, reliable data and high status, which lays the foundation for making more comprehensive and objective suggestions for the audit. Therefore, internal auditors can put forward suggestions for improving the weak links and mistakes entrusted by the actual management department for the reference of managers and other interested parties when making decisions. For example, from 2008 to 20 10, the * * * Audit Bureau of a university in Chongqing completed 1250 items, found out the funds of various disciplines 1856. 1000 yuan, and put forward 264 audit opinions and suggestions, most of which were rectified and implemented, effectively improving.