Graduation fee

This was the advice from Port Moresby General Hospital’s chief of emergency medicine, Dr Sam Yockopua, regarding the new K600 graduation fee.

“UPNG is robbing the students! It's daylight robbery,” Dr Yockopua, who is also involved in the training of medical students at the Taurama campus, told Loop PNG.

“They should not penalise the students for failures by UPNG or the Government.

“The students are completely innocent. This insanity must stop now.”

One of the students told Loop PNG that he was told he might cause a riot, hence the security measure.

“The decision by the university and their reactions towards students’ concern and affairs is unbecoming of a leader.

“We expected more from them,” he said.

The graduating students have been pursuing the administration to justify the recently imposed K600 graduation fee, which does not include costs of the gown (more than K300) and hood (more than K200).

The Council refused to meet with the graduating students today. Instead, the head of Uniforce security, Matthew Kipott, was advised to relay their message to the waiting students.

“The decision of K600 still stands. The Council has made the decision and no meeting will change that,” Kipott told the students this afternoon.

“The graduation date of July 28 also remains.”

The students were further informed that their outstanding payments will be reimbursed.

This was the response to points raised in their petition yesterday.

Unitech vice chancellor, Dr Albert Schram, told Loop PNG that their graduation fee is included in the school fee.

His comments follow the outcry over the University of Papua New Guinea’s new K600 graduation fee.

“We do increase our tuition and fees 10 percent each year to correct for inflation and imbalances in our fee structure,” he continues.

However, the VC pointed out that UPNG has a different fee structure.

“There is no free lunch so they need to charge for costs,” Dr Schram tells Loop.

They claim the university did not advise them of the graduation fee.

“It just came on the media, which shocked the students as there was no (official) circular before that,” Loop PNG was told.

Phylma Timea, a graduating student from the Journalism and Public Relations strand, says it’s unfair on them and their parents.

“We have already paid the school fee, outstanding fees, we were rushed out of our dorms and they didn’t give us a long time to do our clearance.”

Certain regulations and fees were enforced in an effort to address costs incurred during last year’s student unrest, and the new graduation fee is one of them, Acting Chancellor Dr Nicholas Mann tells Loop PNG.

“Other universities have that graduation fee while UPNG, in the last 50 years, did not. However, we are going to start come this graduation,” says Dr Mann.

He explains that the fees will be used for the staging of the graduation on July 28.