By Joshua Arlo
A total of over 3,000 students at tertiary education institutions this year are first year students out of about 8,000 accepted from over 12,000 Grade 12s last year.
This was revealed by Dr Pongie Kichawen, director of policy and planning of the Office of Higher Education (OHE), at the start of orientation for first year students at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) yesterday.
Dr Kichawen said the small number of students accepted into higher learning institutions was due to space limitation.
He also clarified the position of OHE saying it was not involved in the selection of students into tertiary institutions nor was directly involved in the management of the institution.
OHE director-general Dr William Takis also told students yesterday that OHE’s responsibility was to provided advice and policies to the Government.
He said under the OHE, the scholarship schemes awarded to students was a user-pay scheme where the Government assists its citizens in terms of subsidies.
He said students were eligible for scholarships in three main categories – AES, TESAS and Self-Sponser – while the third category is foreign-government sponsored students or private-sponsored.
Acting director of Student Support and Scholarship of OHE Joseph Morimai also told students about how the scholarships were awarded to students and stressed the need for scholars to maintain them.
He said students with a grade point average (GPA) of 3.6-4 were in the AES category while those with 1.6-3.5 were in HECAS.
However, those in HECAS would only be eligible to enter a tertiary institution depending on the course and quota mark decided by the institution – and not by OHE.
“Scholarships are awarded on a yearly basis,” Mr Morimai said, urging the students to perform to retain their scholarships.
He also spoke on the fee structures imposed by different institutions and warned that if students tried to switch programmes of study, they would lose their scholarships.