The government of Papua New Guinea is introducing a new financial support tool for tertiary education students. In the past, only half of the students were eligible for merit-based scholarships that covered some of the fees.  That put a huge financial burden on students and families and resulted in many students being not able to enter or continue their tertiary education.

In 2020 a new Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) is being introduced. Within the program, all registered eligible would be eligible for a loan that should cover most of the expenses. The loan is to be paid by the students were they enter the work market.

To support the current students, PNG Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (DHERST) plans to gather loan applications, process them and award within the ongoing semester. DHERST recognising the success of common work on National Application System has requested PCG Academia for provision of an online system to process the HELP loan system.

On February 17th  to 19th, there was a Higher workshop for the project were a project methodology and team have been established. We were able to check the legal framework for the system and agree on the scope of IT work, which is significant – but small in comparison with huge required awarness/deployment campaign that needs to reach all the tertiary students in the country.