Uni turns away students over fees

By BRADLEY MARIORI
LESS than 100 continuing students from Morobe attending the University of Goroka (UoG) were prevented from registering last week.
The students were not allowed to register because of outstanding school fees from last year.
UoG Morobe students president Douglas Willep said they had already missed four weeks of classes and went to the school last week to register with a requisition for expenditure form (form 3) and general expense form (form 4) from the Morobe government but were denied the chance to register.
Willep said the first-year students were allowed to register but second to fourth year students with outstanding fees were affected.
“We want to use the 50 per cent of fees by the Morobe government to offset our outstanding and then apply for Help (higher education loan programme) but we couldn’t because the 50 per cent fees were not yet processed,” he said.
“We were also told by the administration that self-sponsor student would only be allowed 25 per cent of Help and would sleep out of the campus.
“If the cheque for our fees is processed quickly by the Morobe government, we should be able to register and continue.”
Gerson-Solulu scholarship coordinator Mainuwe Fanamu said they had spoken to UoG already to have the students register once the cheque was cleared.
Fanamu said their cheque would be ready by this week and it was their choice whether to use that money to offset their outstanding and apply for Help or not.