Welcome for Minister DHERST Francis Marus to UNITECH campus

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Dear Minister Hon. Francis Marus, Honourable Member, Council members, Professors, Honoured Guest, Business Houses, Students, Faculty and Staff of the PNGUoT, Ladies and Gentlemen:


I am delighted today to welcome Minister of DHERST, Francis Marus to our campus. A few days ago on Monday, we opened the 52nd Academic Year of the PNGUoT. 52 years is a long time, in fact we were founded 10 years before PNG became independent.

You may not realize that among the 10 or so oldest institutions in the world, over half of them are universities. Some of our partner universities in Europe, the University of Bologna for example is more than 900 years old, and arguably the oldest university in the world.

Opening PNGUoT 52nd Academic Year 2017

Lecture delivered in the Duncanson Hall on 20 February 2017

(Speech published on University Website, Vice Chancellor's Blog and Facebook Page)


Consul General of Australia Paul Murphy, Chancellor Jean Kekedo, Pro Chancellor Peter Eaefere, Council members, Honoured Guests, Business Houses, Students, Professors, HoDs, Faculty members, and Staff of the PNGUoT:

Welcome all to our Taraka Campus today, where tomorrow's leaders are forged.

Hereby, I declare the Academic Year 2017 officially opened.

Vice Chancellor Schram opening the 52nd Academic Year

UNITECH First Year Students

Today, we are all even more delighted than usual at the opening of the academic year to see our incoming first year students and that we got this far. Last year we almost did not finish the academic year, and we had to cancel many of our events and activities. We are happy that we left the 2016 academic year behind, and can run a normal academic year this year, with two 15 weeks semesters.