Enga Governor Sir Peter Ipatas has come up with a reward for top students scoring top academic results at the Enga Nursing College.
Sir Peter told the nursing students on Tuesday that the top student each year would receive K7,000 straight into their bank account from Bank South Pacific.
The students, all from provincial groups other than Enga, were told that the province would become the choice province for education and health in the next five years.
Every province, except Gulf and West Sepik, has students attending the Enga Nursing College at Sopas.
The Governor treated his own 61 Enga students at the college to dinner with their subsidies.
“I might not give you subsidies but I am giving you an opportunity to be educated and to be employed,” he said.
“While others are working on numbers, we are working on quality,” Sir Peter told his audience.
The Governor’s own numbers game is mostly made up, having working on it over the last 20 years with a free education policy unique in PNG for its consistent K10 million annual funding.
When he started in 1997, primary to secondary school enrolment figures in Enga were 10,000.
Today it is 111,000.
A survey three years ago by Ipatas Foundation has revealed that there were 8,000 Enga students attending tertiary institutions nationwide.
“Enga is last peles, the end of the road literally so if you must come here there must be a good reason. I intend to give you that reason with quality education and quality health care,” Sir Peter said.