This site is intended to guide schools with the proper use of resources and public funds, including school grants and other school money collected by the schools. Principals are reminded to practice careful financial management and to ensure there is good management, strong accountability, accurate estimate of expenditure to be made, honesty, maturity and responsibility in the manner that school resources are managed, particularly in receiving school money and how to spend the school money throughout the year. 

1. Schools must have active School Council (SC) and School Community Association (SCA) meetings regularly, or at least once a term, as they will assist the Principal to implement the School Strategic Plan or Annual Plan; 

2. Principals are responsible to upload the CS and SCA minutes into Open VEMIS;

3. Principals are required ot be familiar and comply with all relevant legislation governing your school;

4. Principals are required to be familiar and comply with the Grants Code. This is currently uploaded in Open VEMIS, and available on the MoET website;

5. Principal are required to be familiar and comply with the Schools Financial Management Manual. This is currently uploaded in Open VEMIS, and available on the MoET website;

6. Schools are not to purchase any other education management software, and only use Open VEMIS, as per the Director General's instruction of 26th February 2016.

7. All schools are to only use Open VEMIS to:

a. Record and report on their students data, including filling in all relevant personal information required, such as birth registration numbers, parents details, medical history and other important data;

b. Record and report on student attendance;

c. Record and report all on student fees collected;

d. Record and report on approved school strategic and annual plans;

e. Record, reconcile and report on schools financial transactions monthly, annually or when requested by the Ministry;

f. Record and report on assets;

g. Submit all documentations relating to the land that the school is located on to the PEO;

h. Input all approved school fee structure details; Note that all school fee structure must be approved by the Minister. Schools must not charge any school fees to parents until this approval is given.

i. Input all approved budget structure details;

j. Input any other information as required by the Ministry;

8. Principals must comply with the school grant criteria. In the situation where the Principal fails to meet a school grant criteria, the Provincial PEO will be responsible to manage a school's cheque book, or to freeze the bank account of a school, until:

a. The school complies with all the school grant criteria; and

b. The school can properly record, reconcile and report on the school money accurately and on a timely basis;

9. Principals are to refrain from using "pay cash" on cheques. The limit on the "pay cash" cheques for schools and other institutions will be up to the amount of 50,000 vatu, per withdrawal;

10. Principals are not allowed to apply for bank overdraft facility;

11. Principals and other signatories are not allowed to "pre-sign cheques" that have no support documents attached to verify payment to be made;

12. Principals are not allowed to "pay cash advance" to staff;

13. Principals are required to pay a staff's VNPF contribution to VNPF, each month. Staff is responsible to ensure that he/she is registered with the VNPF;

14. Principals are to ensure that teaching staff that were initially paid by the school and are now paid by the Teaching Service Commission, will now instruct all teachers to reimburse the school money that has been paid to them for the same period that the TSC has paid them for, for this year. This must be done for past years, if this has not yet been done; Any teacher who is unwilling to refund the school money must be reported to the Provincial PEO and the Director of Education Services.

15. Principals must refund all parents for fees that have been covered by the government through the stimulus package, particularly for Years 11, 12, 13 & 14 students. This covers tuition fees, boarding fees and exam fees, and is applicable for the 2021 to 2024 academic year.

16. Principals are reminded to not charge any fees to ECE schools for administering the ECE grants that are being paid through the school's bank account.

17.  Principals are required to ensure that the grants will be spent by the relevant ECCE schools. Note that ECCE schools, particularly for feeder ECCE schools, will be required to record the spending of the grants their respective ECCE schools in Open VEMIS.

18.  Principals are reminded that it is against the School Fee Regulation to pay any sort of fees or tithe back t the Education Authority. Money received by the school is to be used in the school, for the benefit of the students. An Education Authority is responsible for the operations and management of its office and should not be putting financial demands on a school to support the office.

19.  Schools are advised to submit the following year's plans, budgets and fee structure by August.

20.  Reminder to most schools that NBV is charging an inactive fee on the savings account, as it seems schools are not actively using this account.

21.  Principals are to comply with the internal procurement process and limits on payments of goods services, before a cheque can be issued for the payment of goods and services. The current procureme limits are:

a. For any procurement less than 100,000 vatu, 2 quotes are required prior to purchasing;

b. For any procurement from 100,000 vatu to less than 500,000 vatu, 3 quotes are required prior to purchasing;

c. For any procurement from 500,000 vatu to less than 10 million vatu, that is approved by the School Council, and is within the School Strategic Plan or Annual Plan must be made through the Procurement Unit within the Ministry of Education & Training, and must have the Director General's approval; and

d. For any procurement over 10 million vatu, this must have the approval of the Central Tender Boa Ministry of Finance & Economic Management.

Note that a Principal will be held accountable and will be personally liable to pay for goods and services if the above process is not followed, and is not within the School Strategic Plan or School Annual Plan.

22.  As the school is a government institution, according to Part 13 of the Public Finance & Econo Management (PFEM) Act, only the Minister of the Ministry of Finance & Economic Management will be able to request approval of a loan facility through the Council of Ministers, who have authority to approve any loan facility.

As per Part 13 of the PFEM Act, the school will need to ensure that the following criteria are met: 

i. That the loan is necessary and in the public interest;

ii. That the school will have the financial resources to repay back the loan; 

iii. That the loan is consistent with government policies,

iv. Consultation must be held with the Attorney General on the implications of raising the loan

v. Prepare a submission to the Council of Ministers seeking their approval and confirming that the points above are met and must have independent comments from the Director General of the Ministry of Finance & Economic Management.

The school will need to include the school's strategic plan and budget which will detail how the school intends to pay back this money. In addition, the school's bank statements for the past years must also be enclosed to verify whether the school will have budget support to finance the loan, over the next few months/years, depending on the school's past and foretasted cash flow.

If the loan facility will be for capital works then Part 3, Section 17(3) & (4) of the Grant Code will assist the school to plan for this. The 2 sections states that:

(1)  The capital works must be approved by the Facilities Unit in the Ministry to ensure that the building standards are met; and

(2)  Money can be saved over a period of time until the target is reached.

23.  Principals are encouraged to ensure that all assets are maintained and used appropriately for school use,

24.  All assets are required to be recorded in Open VEMIS;

25.  Principals must file all their school documents properly, including all financial records, and must keep tne in a safe and secure place;

26.  The Provincial PEO and staff, with assistance from the School Based Management Unit and the Finance Jn will continue to provide capacity building, through monitoring, mentoring or workshops, to all principals, 3 better improve good financial management and administration practices in schools.

27.  The Provincial PEO and staff, with assistance from the School Based Management Unit and the Finance Unit will continue to organize general awareness on the use of Open VEMIS, the Grant Code, the School's Financial Management Manual, and any other financial documents relevant for all schools to be informed on.

28.  Principals are required to print the school grant certificate and publish on the school notice board.

29.  Principals are required to print the school's monthly, quarterly and annual financial reports and publish the approved reports on the school notice board.

30.  The Internal Audit Unit will continue to carry out regular audit visits or desktop audits to check on the nature of expenses and to ensure that the expenses are in line with the Grants Code.

31.  School Improvement Officers, School Inspectorate & Compliance Officers and Provincial Finance Offices (PFOs) are all encouraged to carry out desk top auditing for schools within their respective provinces, until such time Provincial Auditors are in place.

32.  The Internal Audit Unit will continue to send school audit reports containing audit findings and recommendations to Principals & School Management, Provincial PEOs and/or Education Authorities.

33.  The Internal Audit Unit will also conduct surprise audit visits to schools in provinces as recommended external audit report.

34.  Principals are required to share information, including financial reports and school performances, to school community, which includes the SC and the SCA.

35.  Principals are informed that if financial reports are not submitted by the due date then the penalties to be imposed are i) school's cheque books will be managed by the PEO and/or (ii) freeze schools bank accounts until the reports are completed, signed and submitted to the PEO.

36.  The 2022 annual financial reports are now due, to include reporting on the grants received from Government Stimulus Package, the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Grant, the Vanuatu School Community Grant (VASCG), and the Government Grant & Tuition Fee. Note that grants received donor partners are to be recorded as "Other Donor Partners Income”, in Open VEMIS.

37.  Principals are required to have access and use their schools standard email accounts that were created MoET IT for school related communications. Please contact MoET IT or your Provincial Education Office get your account details if you do not already have this.

38.  Important circulars, memos and other important information from the Ministry will be sent to those email accounts so principals must constantly check their school email accounts to view and read emails.

39.  The MoET website and Open VEMIS is free on the Digicel and Vodafone network.

40.  The list of education resource websites that can be accessed for free by all schools are listed in the website.

Click the following button to download the document:

Click the following button to download the document:

Contact the MOET Finance Unit via phone:

33500 (Digicel)
22309 (Vodafone)

Contact us via email:

finance@vanuatu.gov.vu