THE University of Technology (Unitech) is seeking government support to expand its campus after announcing the rolling out of five new engineering and agriculture programmes next year.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Ora Renagi appealed to deputy Prime Minister and Lae MP, John Rosso, and Morobe Governor Rainbo Paita to back the transfer of Telikom College to Unitech.
The call follows his appeal to Prime Minister James Marape at the university’s recent graduation ceremony to purchase the college for K50 million and transfer it to the university to create space for growth and expansion.
The appeal comes after Higher Education Minister Kinoka Feo recently visited the university and challenged it to increase its enrollment.
“The university is expanding but that expansion is constrained by resources,” Renagi said.
“We have made submissions for Public Investment Programme funding and this money is trickling in, but it’s not enough to support the expansion that we have been talking about.”
Unitech will introduce petroleum engineering, aerospace engineering, computer engineering, software engineering, and agriculture mechanisation next year to meet industry demand identified in university surveys.
“These programmes will help produce the highly skilled workforce needed to support development and economic growth,” Renagi said.
He said Unitech had focused on quality and international benchmarking to prepare for expansion.
Its engineering programmes are already accredited to Australian standards, allowing graduates to work in Australia.
Other schools including agriculture, architecture and building, construction management, surveying and land studies, communications for development, computer science, physics and chemistry and forestry, will also be benchmarked to industry or international standards.
“We are using strategic planning, drawing up our strategic objectives and giving targets to our staff to achieve the vision of Unitech becoming a world-class university and the hub of science and technology in PNG and the region,” he said.
Unitech is an active member of the Pacific Islands Universities Regional Network and Pacific Academy of Sciences, supported by the Australian Academy of Sciences.
