Students at the University of Papua New Guinea will have to re-apply for the 2017 academic year.
This follows the termination of the 2016 academic year announced by the University Council today.
UPNG vice chancellor Professor Albert Mellam confirmed that the students will have to reapply to repeat semester one in 2017.
The 2016 first year students will have to reapply as a non-school leaver and will join the school leavers as first year students for 2017.
Mellam said that this is an administrative process that happens every year and existing information for the students will be used.
This process will give the administration some sense of how many students will be returning for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years to repeat in 2017.
"A modified application form for all our students to reapply to come back to the university in 2017 will be published on the UPNG website in the next couple of weeks," he said.
Mellam said the university senate is putting in place a structure to accommodate the 2016 first year’s students and the new intakes.
“It will have some consequence because of the load and the capacity of the different schools to address the first year students.
“The Grade 12 students cannot be penalized so the university will look for a pathway that is inclusive and accommodative of the first year students coming into the university in 2017.
“We will disclose that to the public through a public notice and our web page,” Mellam said.
Mellam said, "Infrastructure is an issue but we will create a platform in terms of accommodating all first year students and we will look at those models throughout the course of the next couple of months".
The council informed that the issue of tuition fees will be further discussed.