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Financial Management 13entrepreneurial culture that encourages innovation and embraceschange. As a state university, UT has two main financial sources:government and students. The government funds personnel(salaries) and some capital expenditures, including physical developmentand procurement (land, building, heavy equipment, etc.),maintenance and utility costs, and new initiatives (experiments,research and development, etc.). Income generated from studentsincludes tuition fees, learning material sales, f2f tutorial fees (whenapplied) and scholarships for in-service teacher training fromprovincial and district governments throughout the country.The general expectation that ODL involves low costs has limitedbudget allocations at the UT. The government allocates a lowerbudget to UT than to conventional state (f2f) higher educationinstitutions. Students also expect to pay less for UT tuition thanat conventional universities. It is, therefore, important for ODLinstitutions such as UT to be creative in generating funding. Forthe past 15 years, UT has been collaborating closely with thegovernment to upgrade the qualifications of primary school teachersfrom teacher training programmes at high-school level to twoyeardiploma and full-degree bachelor’s programmes. Besidesthese sources, UT also generates funding from research and collaborationactivities with other institutions, though this amountis not significant in UT’s overall budget. The most recent averageratio of funding generated from government and students hasbeen 25:75. This is the reverse of that in the f2f state universities,which tend to be heavily government subsidised.As a large organisation, UT follows a policy of decentralisationin its budget planning, with a combination of top-down andbottom-up approaches. Via the top-down approach, the UniversityRector defines programme and budget priorities for theguidance of the institution’s units, based on the University’sStrategic and Operational Plans and on estimated revenue. Thebottom-up approach is used by each unit in developing its annualprogramme and budget plan, based on its roles and functions (jobresponsibilities and descriptions). For example, the programmesand activities of an academic department within a faculty include,but are not limited to, development and revision of mastercopies of course materials, and development of assignments andexamination items. This meets one of the Strategic Plan’s keyobjectives about the need for course materials to be novel andup-to-date.