University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG)

The council clarified that the university played no part in prompting his resignation rather, Mellam resigned at his own accord and the University accepts his decision.

Professor Mellam entered UPNG at the age of 17 as a student. And now, after serving the university for 29 years as an academia and an administrator at management level, Professor Mellam is drawing the curtain to his public service career.

His resignation will be effective as of 4:06pm on Friday, May 26th.

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).

These were the remarks from UPNG pro vice-chancellor, Professor Mange Matui, during the opening of the 2^nd UPNG Career Expo on Tuesday.

He said having this in mind, students need to make use of the opportunity they have been given, instead of taking it for granted.

Compared to last year’s expo, Tuesday’s event was hailed a major success.

The theme of the expo, “Embracing one’s career path” is targeted at the third and final year students.

Career coordinator, Dika Iru, told Loop PNG that the university is still in its 2016 academic year and will end in two weeks’ time when the final years graduate.

“Following that the third years will move into their final year in April as well as the new intakes for the 2017 academic year.”

 PNG has no problem with attracting tourists, the only issue that confronts the country is setting up hotels to suit the needs of the tourists, stated the manager.

More is yet to be attained in this industry as Hannan also pointed out that one of the most significant problems with PNG’s tourism industry is that most hotels in the country tend to compete with each other, instead of working together to improve and further promote the industry.

UPNG School of Business and Public Policy (SBPP) Executive Dean, Professor Lekshmi Pillai, said to increase the public service human resource, the School has already embarked on new programs and infrastructure.

SBPP started a new program this year called Master of Economic and Public Policy.

In addition, construction on a new School of Business and Public Policy complex has commenced.

The purpose of their planned withdrawal of teaching and assessment component of work is due to their outstanding 7.5 percent pay increment.

NASA has had continuous meetings with the UPNG Management on the issue as well as Industrial Registrar and the Department of Higher Education, including the Minister.

However, there hasn’t been any positive feedback.

NASA president Emmanuel Gorea told Loop PNG that they will be meeting at 10am tomorrow to confirm the support of signatures for voluntary withdrawal.

In a statement, the university says: “This position is a crucial one for the protection of University properties and ensuring the safety of staff, students, the University Community and visitors to our campus, as Mr. Kipott is the head of the University’s Security Service and the University Commercial Security Service (UCSS).

“As you would have witnessed during the student boycott of classes and student unrest from May through August, the University’s security personnel were placed under considerable pressure to contain the situation.

The Student Services Division director, Garua Peni, confirmed with Loop PNG that the date for students to move into campus, for the second part of semester 2, 2016 academic year, is Jan 16.

“Next week is actually a flexible week,” says Peni.

“It’s week 7, which is consolidation. So there’ll be no classes.”

The director says students can turn up and sort themselves out during that time.

The students’ break started on Dec 19 last year, while the 2016 academic year will end on March 15.

(Loop file picture)