The main objective of the study was to explore the practices and challenges of financial rnmanagement in private and government secondary schools in Dukem town. Therefore, this study rnfocuses on find out common sources of finances, find out how the schools manage the finance rnearned from different sources, to identify the challenges in role in managing the finance and rnmeasure taken. Descriptive method were employed to conduct the study and the sampling techniques. rnQuestionnaire, interview, and different financial documents were used as data collecting rninstruments. Questionnaires for 7 school principal, 68 teachers, 8 financier personnel from four rnschools and, interviews with 8 PSTA, 1 process owner from education office and 1 finance rnprocess owners were conducted. The study discovered that the education budget comes from the rngovernment, School internal income and community contribution were the main sources of rneducation budget in study schools. Teachers were selected through stratified random sampling rntechniques; whereas school PSTA, principals, vice principals and financial personnel were rnselected trough available sampling techniques. The statics used to analyze the data were rnfrequency, mean and one way Anova test. The study found that the lack of diversification sources rnof school finance, lack of participation of stakeholder in budget preparation, lack of financially rnskilled man power finance personnel, lack of relevant training, absence of internal and external rnauditing activity, delay in releasing budget, engagement of school management on different rnduties and lack of effective measures taken were the major challenges of financial utilization in rnDukem Town Secondary Schools. Based on the finding of the study, it was recommended that all rnthe stakeholders should involve in diversification of school sources of finance, participate rnactively in financial management system ,fulfill skilled man power of finance personnel, also the rnfinance and economic development office should audit the financial activities performed in rnaccordance with the existing financial guidelines, regulations and principles of ministry of rnfinance to minimize the stated problems and take effective measure up on problem makers of the rnschool finance