MORE than 400 students from the University of Papua New Guinea who were previously on scholarship, have lost this benefit through no fault of theirs, and angry UPNG officials have asked the Office of Higher Education to explain this.
It is understood funds might have been diverted to pay for an “overrun” of K900,000 at the OHE last year.
UPNG officials said 443 scholarships for continuing students at the UPNG this year had been wiped off and this will become a hot political issue once the 443 continuing students, who were previously on scholarship and who easily satisfied the GPA requirements for continuity, find out that they do not have scholarship.
Registration at the Waigani campus starts next week and about 4,000 students will enroll for studies this year —- both new and continuing.
The 443 students affected are in Year 2, 3, 4 and 5 of different studies, and the university has warned that their future career could now be in doubt. Neither these students nor their parents had been forewarned about the cutback in scholarships, officials said.
The cutback was attributed to poor management of scholarships in the past, but UPNG said it was wrong to finance 2007 overruns from 2008 allocations.
Documents obtained by The National say the University of Technology in Lae will also lose 100 scholarships, and the University of Goroka will lose 200, but UPNG was higher.
UPNG Vice-Chancellor Ross Hynes has written to the OHE demanding why UPNG students were treated more harshly when their GPAs were higher than those of other universities.
Mr Hynes said the OHE should quickly find a solution to this potentially explosive problem, as the UPNG was not in any position to take responsibility for OHE’s decision.
The cut back on scholarship comes at a time when serious allegations have been raised about scholarships been given to “wantoks”, and wrong grades being entered on higher school certificates, leading to some top Grade 12 performers missing out on places in tertiary institutions through no fault of their own.
OHE has stated publicly that it was not responsible for the grading foul-up, and instead blamed the Measurement Standards Unit of the Education Department.
It has also been revealed that in the recent past some officials at the OHE were selling scholarships on the streets of Port Moresby, and also giving them to friends and relatives.
Top OHE officials believe they have put a stop to the selling of scholarships on the streets, but deny that they have under-awarded UPNG by 440 scholarships.