Universities restart classes

By SAMUEL BARIASI and ZACHERY PER
THE University of Papua New Guinea will respect the decision of students who prefer to withdraw from their courses this year, says Chancellor Robert Igara.
The university and other tertiary institutions around the country are resuming their academic programmes and activities today after an eight-week break due to the Covid-19.
Igara said UPNG would respect what each student decided.
“The university will address their individual decisions case-by-case, also fully recognising the obligation of students to consult their sponsors, which in most cases is the Government,” he said.
UPNG vice-chancellor Prof Frank Griffin said maintaining social distancing would be a challenge because of space.
“The space in many of our facilities is not as big as we would prefer to cater for classes,” Griffin said.
He said lectures and tutorials might have to be duplicated to ensure that social distancing was maintained.
“We are going to establish checkpoints where students and staff are going to be tested by our medical staff.”
Griffin said the university would be asking the Government to provide temperature testing kits.
Griffin said the university was opened from today although the start of classes would take some time.
“We will take note of the number of students with the room sizes so that we comply with directives from the Higher Education Department.”
He told The National that recovering lost class times would mean ending all academic programmes in November.
“We usually finish around October but we might finish in November with a compressed semester and study breaks.”
Meanwhile, the University of Goroka (UOG) will not miss out on any academic programme for the first semester because it will convert study and semester breaks to fill the void, said Chancellor Joseph Sukwianomb.
“We are moving study and semester breaks to cover the gaps,” he said.
“Classes resume tomorrow (today), continuing the academic activities for the remainder of semester one.
“Semester one should end by end of July and mid-August, this is basically the restructure of academic programmes for the first semester for this year.”