Student loan plan set

By HELEN TARAWA
PRIME Minister James Marape, pictured, has announced the Government’s approval of an endowment fund, part of which will assist students obtain study loans from next year.
The prime minister made the announcement at the closing of the 2019 PNG Update Forum on Friday where he informed students, academics and the public of decisions by the National Executive Council (NEC), including the endowment fund.
“Two nights ago (on Wednesday evening) in Cabinet we made a critical decision on policy to give an indication as to how our state-owned entities (SOEs) would split their revenues,” he said.
“We’ve indicated that 50 per cent of the revenues will come to budget support, we’re putting capital to 20 per cent for the SOE’s own expenditures.
“And 10 per cent of the revenue we are looking at community assistance programmes, especially churches. Another seven per cent will now start what past governments have talked about – saving for the future through the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) concept – our government will make it happen.”
Marape said seven per cent of every earnings from the SOEs will go towards the SWF setup. “I want to link the SWF to the students assistance programme going into the future, so these are some of the decisions that have been made,” he said.
Marape said in order to benefit from the loan scheme, interested students will have to be registered under the National Identity and Civil Registry and they must have an acceptance letter from the institution they last attended.
He said they would enter into a soft loan which the students can repay for the rest of their lives.
“Some of these discussions when we announce them in September, I want you to pick a copy and tell me if this is workable and this is not workable,” he said.
“The only thing that we will not change is the 10 Commandments that Moses received on Mt Sinai.
“Our constitution is possibly changeable, our organic laws are changeable and our Acts of Parliament are definitely changeable so when I look through them, the policies of government are really the ones we can change at any time, we can change to policies that can work for us,” Marape said.
In January, Higher Education secretary Fr Jan Czuba said the department was developing loan packages for students.
He said the loan scheme was to help students to be able to afford university and college education and help ease the financial struggle of parents, especially those from rural areas.
Czuba said that scheme was a priority for the government and so had to be funded under the national budget. In June, Higher Education Research, Science and Technology Minister Nick Kuman said he wanted to reduce tuition fees for tertiary institutions to allow financially disadvantage students to enrol.
Kuman said he wanted students, especially those from remote areas, to attend tertiary institutions they had qualified for with affordable fees.
“I will pursue the tertiary loan scheme for students to apply for loans to pay for their fees and when they work after graduating, they can repay their loans,” he said.
“Currently, the fees are too high that bright children from remote areas throughout the country cannot afford, so they remain back in the villages. With the tertiary loan scheme, it will enable them to afford the fees for their desired institutions to pursue their goals.”