Uni students want O’Neill to honour subsidy promise

By GIBSON TORASO
UPNG journalism student
UNIVERSITY of Papua New Guinea Student Representative Council president Immanuel Isaac is calling on the government to honour a promise to consider subsidising school fees for tertiary students.
Shortly after becoming Prime Minister on Aug 2 last year, Peter O’Neill visited the university and told students that his government would reintroduce the abandoned national scholarship programme.
Isaac said since then fees at tertiary institutions in the country had increased instead.
He said there was no sign of the promise and the national government needed to save the students by either paying or subsidising their fees.
“Some students cannot meet the rising fees,” he said.
 “There are a group of tertiary students who come from poor backgrounds and their parents are unable to pay their fees.”
He said at UPNG, self-sponsored students were paying K6,000 to K7,000 in fees.
The Office of Higher Education-sponsored students were paying between K4,000 and K5,000.
He said that was too great a burden on poor parents.
Isaac said for the government to achieve its vision 2050 in terms of human resource development, it must invest heavily on tertiary education.
“When we plant something, we plant to reap its fruit.
“In the same was, if the government invests heavily on its human resources development, it will reap millions of kina from it and will realise Vision 2050,” he said.
Isaac said that if the government was really serious about developing the human resources of the country then it must either pay or subsidise fees for tertiary students.