The Sir Peter Barter Tertiary Scholarship Program (SPBTSP) under the coordination of the Madang Provincial Government has issued guarantee letters to students who had applied from December 2023 to February 2024.
A name list of selected students has been printed and posted on the Provincial Government notice board. Students or parents and guardians of those students who have already travelled to their institutions of study have been called to confirm their names and collect their letters.
SPBTSP is in its second year running but there are still outstanding payments from last year which parents and students have been following up on.
According to program coordinator Sam Uyagaum, there was a strict criteria used to award the scholarship to the finalists.
Criteria included acceptance letters, character letters from their schools and a 50 per cent upfront payment of the total school fees to be selected.
Mr. Uyagaum stated that the initial window period for applications was from December 2023 to January 2024, however, they extended the deadline to February 14th 2024 in order to give time to students who needed to meet all the requirements, especially in paying the 50 per cent parent component of the school fees.
This year’s scholarship component has also been reduced to 50 per cent from last year’s 75 per cent.
The total number of students accepted is 1101 and they have ensured to capture an equal number of applicants from the six districts.
Mr. Uyagaum states that by reducing the SPBTSP’s component to 50% will allow the officers to increase the number of applicants and also to ensure that parents meet their component for their children to register in various institutions whilst waiting for the scholarship component.
In addition, there is a second requirement to be complied with after receiving the letters in order for funding to be disbursed. Upon registering, each student has to send a copy of their signed registration form back to the governor’s office as proof of enrolment.
Mr. Uyagaum states that payment will be done according to the forms collected, as it was found from last year that payments were done to schools where students have not registered.
The scholarship coordinator has expressed remorse and sympathy towards students from last year who still have outstanding yet to be paid, resulting in complications with registering this year. Mr. Uyagaum has assured that the remaining K4.1 million will be paid for last year’s 75 per cent outstanding component once money is released into the scholarship account.
This year’s allocation for the SPBTSP is K10 million from the Provincial Government and K2.9 million from MCC royalty payment. A total of 102 institutions that have students from Madang registered will have their accounts paid by the scholarship office once funding is released.