The UN Education Grant Explained: How Much It Pays, Who Qualifies and What It Covers

For an internationally recruited staff member with school-age children, the education grant can be worth up to $34,845.24 per child per year — one of the largest allowances in the package, and one of the least understood. It does not pay a fixed share of school fees. It reimburses admissible expenses on a sliding scale, in United States dollars, that has not been adjusted since the academic year in progress on 1 January 2022. School fees have not been so restrained.

Three things decide what you actually receive: whether your appointment qualifies, which items on the school bill count, and whether you claim on time. This guide takes each in turn.

The scale has not moved since January 2022

Both the scale and the boarding lump sum are reviewed periodically against fee movements at a fixed set of representative schools. The Commission ran that review in 2024: tuition at the 29 representative schools had risen 5.14 per cent on average, weighted by the number of common-system children attending them, and boarding costs 8.37 per cent. It recommended raising the scale from the school year in progress on 1 January 2025 and lifting the boarding lump sum to $5,743.¹

The General Assembly did not approve it. Adopting resolutions 79/252 A and B on 24 December 2024, it left the education grant, the child allowance and the secondary dependant's allowance at their existing levels.² The amounts in force are still those of information circular ST/IC/2022/8, effective from the academic year in progress on 1 January 2022.³

The instruction is explicit that admissible expenses are reimbursed on the global scale "regardless of the currency and the country in which the expenses are incurred".⁴ Post adjustment corrects base salary for the cost of living at each duty station; the grant does no such thing. Geneva fees and Nairobi fees meet the same brackets in the same currency.

The education grant ladder: what each dollar of fees is worth

Reimbursement is marginal, not flat. Each tranche of admissible expenses is paid at its own rate, and the rate falls as the bill rises.

Two numbers there do most of the work. The first is the floor written into the instruction: a staff member "shall bear at least 14 per cent of the cost of admissible expenses", which is why the top bracket stops at 86 rather than 100.⁵ The second is $46,284, where the ladder ends — a fee of $60,000 attracts exactly the same reimbursement as one of $46,284.

The ceiling is not small: $34,845.24 per child per academic year is worth just under four fifths of the net base salary of a P-1 at step I on the scale effective 1 January 2026. Boarding adds a flat $5,300 per child whatever boarding costs, and capital assessment fees — the building levies some schools charge as a condition of enrolment — are reimbursed at 100 per cent on top.

Who the grant actually reaches

Four conditions must all be met: the staff member is an international recruit under staff rule 4.5; holds a fixed-term, continuing or permanent appointment; serves outside the recognized home country; and has a child in full-time attendance at an educational institution at the primary level or above.⁶

Each of those cuts. Locally recruited staff — General Service and National Professional Officers — are outside the scheme whatever their grade, and so is anyone on a temporary appointment or a non-staff contract. Education counts as "primary" only once the child is five at the start of the academic year, or turns five within three months of it.

The entitlement then ends at whichever comes first of three events: the child stops attending full time; the child completes four years of post-secondary study or is awarded a first recognized post-secondary degree; or the child turns 25, in which case it runs to the end of that academic year.

Boarding assistance is narrower still. It requires a duty station with a hardship classification of A to E — headquarters stations were taken out of the scheme — and a school outside the country of the duty station and beyond commuting distance. At a non-family duty station, no grant is payable for a child schooled at that duty station at all, because the family is not authorized to reside there.

"Mandatory" does not mean "admissible"

This is where claims lose money, and the wording changed under everyone's feet. Since the school year in progress on 1 January 2021, expenses that are not enrolment-related fees, tuition or capital assessment fees have been non-admissible even if mandated by the academic institution.⁷

What that excludes is unusually specific: health, catering, transport, sports, extracurricular activities and field trips; general or miscellaneous fees; equipment of any kind, including laptops, tablets, books, materials, supplies and uniforms; and contributions, donations, deposits, late fees and memberships. Examination fees are admissible once, to determine admission to a programme or level of study — retake fees are not.

Mother-tongue tuition, distance and blended learning, private tuition and prerequisite summer courses are admissible on their own conditions, and distance learning needs written approval in advance. Scholarships must be disclosed: they are set first against the non-admissible expenses, and only the excess comes off the admissible ones.

The dates that decide whether you are paid

1. Before the year, or within four months of its start — request the advance on form P.45/EG with the school's invoices; it is normally paid at 100 per cent of the anticipated grant. Become eligible later, and you have until three months before the year ends.
2. During the year — report promptly if the anticipated fees fall, so the advance can be adjusted. Keep proof of payment that is not cash: receipts for cash payments are not accepted.
3. Within two months of the end of the academic year — submit the claim with form P.41, certified by the school. Sooner if the child stops attending, or if you separate first.
4. After the third month following the year's end — an uncleared advance is recovered from your emoluments, and no further advance is authorized until it is settled.
5. For five years afterwards — keep your copy of the certified P.41. That is the audit window.⁸

What the 2027 review would change

The grant sits inside the comprehensive review of the compensation package. Two conclusions of the working group on family-related elements are on the record: the minimum age of eligibility stays, and the grant should be prorated where a staff member teleworks from their home country for more than two thirds of the academic year.⁹ At its 102nd session in Vienna in July 2026 the Commission settled the package it will put to the General Assembly, to take effect on 1 July 2027; the tertiary years were kept, with an option to spend them on early childhood education instead.¹⁰ None of it is law yet — the Assembly decides, and it has declined a recommendation on this benefit once already.

Misconceptions and clarifications

"The grant covers 75 per cent of school fees." That was the pre-2018 design, and it survives on a good deal of guidance still online, some of it official. There is no single rate now: reimbursement is marginal across six brackets, 86 per cent down to 61.

"It is adjusted for my duty station, like everything else." It is not. One scale, in United States dollars, applies wherever the fees arise and in whatever currency they are billed.

"My contract is with the UN, so I qualify." Eligibility runs off the appointment, not the employer. Temporary appointments and non-staff contracts do not carry it, and locally recruited staff are outside the scheme however long they serve.

"Boarding is paid at cost." It is a flat lump sum per child per year, currently $5,300, paid regardless of the actual bill and only where the hardship and distance conditions are met.

A note on scope

This describes the United Nations Secretariat scheme — staff regulation 3.2, staff rule 3.9 and appendix B to the Staff Rules, implemented by ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1 and its amendments. The scale and the boarding lump sum are common-system amounts set through the ICSC, so the figures travel across agencies; the procedures, forms and delegated authorities do not. Check your own organization's POPP or HR portal before relying on a deadline or a form number here. A separate instruction governs the special education grant for a child with a disability, which reimburses to a higher ceiling.

Key takeaways

• Find the appointment type in your offer before you count on the grant. "Fixed-term" is the word that matters.
• Strip the school bill down to tuition, enrolment-related fees and capital assessment fees before you estimate anything — everything else is noise, however the invoice labels it.
• Run your own fees down the ladder instead of assuming a headline percentage. Above $46,284, further fees are entirely yours.
• Diarize two dates: the advance request within four months of the start of the school year, and the claim within two months of its end.

Related reading

• How the UN pay system works — where the grant sits relative to net base salary, post adjustment and the allowances around it.
• Non-family duty stations in the UN — the designation that removes the grant for a child schooled at your duty station.
• What to review before you sign a UN offer — how to read the appointment type that decides eligibility for this and much else.

If you have children and you are weighing a move, the grant is one line of a much longer package. See which allowances your contract type actually confers →

Sources

1. International Civil Service Commission, Report for 2024, A/79/30, paras. 230–231 and 243 (a). icsc.un.org. ↩
2. International Civil Service Commission, Report for 2025, A/80/30, para. 9. icsc.un.org. ↩
3. ST/IC/2022/8, "Education grant and special education grant for children with a disability", annex. policy.un.org. ↩
4. ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1, "Education grant and related benefits", section 3.3. ↩
5. ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1, sections 3.4 and 3.5. ↩
6. ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1, sections 2.2, 2.3, 2.5, 2.9 and 2.10. ↩
7. ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1/Amend.1, paras. 2–4. ↩
8. OHR/PG/2022/1, "Education grant and related benefits", paras. 5–19; ST/AI/2018/1/Rev.1, sections 7 and 8. policy.un.org. ↩
9. A/80/30, annex V, paras. 6 (a) and 9. ↩
10. FICSA, "ICSC agrees on the changes it will recommend to the General Assembly for the compensation package", 102nd session, Vienna, July 2026. ficsa.org. ↩

Last reviewed: October 2026. This guide is general information rather than official HR or financial advice — entitlements should be confirmed with the employing organization's HR and the governing UN instructions.