Vanuatu's education minister, Donald Kalpokas, has confirmed that the government has cut the education budget in 2004 by 7 percent.
This means the government will no longer pay the annual 50 US dollar school fee subsidies per secondary school student.
Mr Kalpokas says the cut is due to financial difficulties which affect not only schools and parents but the whole education sector.
He says the government also decided that schools cannot charge more than 150 US dollars for school fees to ensure all the students to have an opportunity to go to secondary school.
But some schools didn't observe the limitations.
"Through the regulations impose a limitation on school fees, but it has not been observed by many schools, the schools have been imposing school fees in an ad hoc manner, so that make the limit was not observed by schools, and that was the reasons why some schools are charging low and some are charging well over the limit ways and become unaffordable for parents."
