BY MAVIS N PODOKOLO
Feepayers owe the Solomon Islands National University (SINU) $92.3 million in total.
And, SINU is urging feepayers to settle their outstanding before the second semester for this year starts.
Students with outstanding fees will not be allowed to enroll semester two, SINU warns.
Dr Jack Maebuta, acting vice chancellor of SINU, revealed this in his keynote address at the opening of the institute’s $120million complex yesterday.
Maebuta said the current outstanding fees are as follows: Constituencies $37.9M, private SBD$49.7M and G-Province $4.7M. This totals to SBD$92.3M.
“I therefore, in good faith call on all fee payers with outstanding fees to settle their outstanding fees before semester two starts,” he said.
Maebuta adds that in semester two, students can enroll only in units they can afford to pay.
“For instance, if the total load for second semester in your program of studies is five units and you can only afford to pay for two units then you only enroll and pay for that two units only.”
Meanwhile, Maebuta said that a second challenge is that of assisting students with scholarships.
He stated the students who are assisted with scholarships only accounts for 7.5 percent of the total enrolment. In 2020, SIG awarded 640 scholarships and this year it was reduced to 617.
“There are merited students who are struggling to pay for their fees.
“I would like to humbly request the Government as they have indicated that it will increase SINU’s operation grant to $60M and $100M for development grant in 2022 that they do likewise to scholarship awards.
“That is if they can increase the scholarship to at least 30 percent or more of SINU’s enrolment. The other alternatives would be that companies sponsor say 10 students each and some form of tax initiatives can be granted by the government.”
