Tertiary students on Bougainville have not left for their respective schools because they are still waiting for their tickets from the Office of Higher Education (OHE).
The students who are all under HECAS scholarships are frustrated with the new system used by the OHE to issue tickets to continuing students through post offices around the nation.
A fourth year female student at the University of Goroka said that the new system is causing inconvenience for the students.
“If OHE had sent the tickets directly to Air Niugini the process of getting our tickets would not be so slow,” she said.
She said the new system was time consuming and that their schools were expecting them for registration this week.
“I hope the OHE sees the inconvenience this new arrangement is causing and will try to do something better for the students next year,” she said.
The same sentiment was shared amongst senior students of the University of Technology, who said living in Buka was very expensive.
“Some of us live away from Buka town and cannot afford to travel to and from the town just to check our tickets. With hefty school fees already in place it is just another burden to our parents,” they said.
“We just hope we receive our tickets early so we can travel to our schools in time,” they said.
The Office of Higher Education said that they have already given the students tickets to Travel Express, which is the travel agent being used to issue students tickets throughout the nation.
Travel Express said tickets were at hand but they were waiting for available seats on Air Niugini’s student concession fair.
They said, due to the closer of the Madang highway, all students who normally travel by road were now traveling by air, making the work of acquiring seats on the plane very difficult.
They reassured the students that they were doing all can to rectify the situation.
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