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Government moves to take over national universities
By PETER KORUGL
THE Government is moving to take control of public universities in the
country following the unrest in recent months at those institutions.
Legislative changes are being mooted, which would allow the National
Government to intervene directly in unrests at the universities.
The move to empower the Minister for Higher Education, Science and
Technology are among many options that are being looked at by the Office
of Higher Education (OHE), which would reform the universities.
The details would be worked out by the end of the week and presented to
the NEC for endorsement.
This was announced by Higher Education Minister David Basua yesterday.
Speaking from Port Moresby, Mr Basua said the NEC had endorsed a
submission he made for legislative changes to be made to the Higher
Education Act at its recent meeting in Wewak, East Sepik province.
“I made a submission for amendments to the Higher Education Act which
will give more powers to the minister to act in times of crisis at
university.
“Currently the minister does not have any powers under the existing law.
In the case of the unrest at the PNG University of Technology, the
students wanted me to intervene but I couldn’t. I had no power,” Mr
Basua said yesterday.
The public universities are the University of Papua New Guinea, the PNG
University of Technology, the University of Vudal and the University of
Goroka. These institutions for higher learning were established and
governed under separate Acts of Parliament.
Mr Basua said the Government had noted the increasing incidences of
unrests at these universities and it was unable to do anything because
it was powerless.
Mr Basua said the Government and the Office of Higher Education had
learnt lessons from the unrests at these institutions and had undertaken
to develop strategies in order to address these issues.
He said the OHE was working on the details for the next NEC submission.
 
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