Tuition fees to be electronically disbursed

THE O’Neill-Namah government’s Free Tuition Fee fund will be electronically disbursed to all schools, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said yesterday.
“This action will allow schools in the country to access the free tuition fee fund in a timely manner in commencing their school year,” O’Neill said in a statement.
He said the disbursement of funds would fall into three categories namely:
lCategory 1: Schools with established bank accounts;
lCategory 2: Established schools without bank accounts, andlCategory 3: Schools without bank accounts and yet to confirm their establishment.
O’Neill said to date, the State, through the Education Department, had completed its hectic exercise in identifying schools into the three categories and had produced volumes one, two and three for each category.
“These volumes will be made available to Department of Finance and the Bank South Pacific in transferring free tuition fees direct to school accounts,” he said.
O’Neill said the following would be the government’s directions in the disbursements of the fees:
lSchools in category one should allow the bank to immediately transfer their tuition fees direct to their bank accounts; lSchools in category two should allow the bank to transfer tuition fees only when the schools established their school bank account with the bank; and
lSchools in category three  would have joint physical audit inspection conducted by treasury and education inspection units in provinces and districts to ascertain physical existence of schools before releasing of the tuition fees by the bank to school bank accounts.