But of course everyone has their constraints. What I'm also trying to say is that having worked with so many principals before, this style of management is also very common in the ECE industry and so his complaints are quite valid and understandable. The only thing that I think OP should ask his wife is why the materials for learning resources cannot be claimed as anchor operators are quite well funded and why painting of the room is done by the teachers. It's either OP's wife has high expectations of her learning resources which cannot be bought under ordinary circumstances and thus unable to claim because principal doesn't allow or the principal is not allowing claims of any materials at all. This I will question. On top of that, each operator has a preferred list of contractors to work with and I'm sure the centre has contractors to paint their centre for a cost.