1,000 accepted for scholarship

A TOTAL of 1,101 students have been accepted for the Sir Peter Barter Tertiary Scholarship Programme from Madang’s six districts, says programme coordinator Sam Uyagaum.
The Sir Peter Barter Tertiary Scholarship Programme (SPBTSP) under the coordination of the Madang government has issued guarantee letters to students who applied starting from December 2023 to February 2024.
“The initial window period for applications was from December 2023 to January 2024, however, the deadline was extended to Feb 14 to give time to students who needed to meet all the requirements, especially in paying the 50 per cent parent component of the school fees,” Uyagaum said.
The 2024 scholarship component has been reduced from last year’s 75 per cent to 50 per cent.
The list of selected students was printed and posted on the provincial government notice board.
Parents and guardians of those students who have already travelled out to their institutions of study have been called to confirm their names and collect their letters.
SPBTSP is in its second year running but there are still outstanding payments from last year which parents and students are still following up on.
Uyagaum said there was a strict criteria used to award the scholarship to the finalists.
Criteria included acceptance letters, character references from their schools and 50 per cent upfront payment of the total school fees to be selected.
“By reducing the SPBTSP’s component to 50 per cent, this will allow the officers to increase the number of applicants and also to ensure that parents meet their component for their children to register in various institutions whilst waiting for the scholarship component,” he said.
In addition, there is a second requirement to be complied with after receiving the letters in order for funding to be distributed.
Upon registering, each student must send a copy of their signed registration form back to the governor’s office as proof of enrolment.
“Payment will be done according to the forms collected, as it was found from last year that payments were done to schools where students had not registered,” Uyagaum said. Uyagaum expressed sympathy towards students from last year who still have outstanding yet to be paid, resulting in complications with registering for this academic year.
He said remaining K4.1 million would be paid for last year’s 75 per cent outstanding component once money was released into the scholarship account.
This year’s allocation for the SPBTSP is K10 million from the provincial government and K2.9 million from Ramu nickel mine royalty payment.