Prime Minister Hon. James Marape has commended President of Hungary, Her Excellency Katalin Novak, for offering 50 education scholarships to Papua New Guinean students at various tertiary institutions in Hungary.

The Prime Minister said his government would match these 50 scholarships with 50 more, and will have students sourced from the STEM program in the country’s national schools of Excellence to take up the scholarships. 

This was one of the things the two leaders discussed this morning in their bilateral meeting, held at Nature Park in Port Moresby (pictured). 

PM Marape said: “Hungary is a well-developed country with a knowledge-based economy so we are thankful to President Novak for this offer, which we will gladly take up.

“We are already sending our Math and Science students in the STEM programs to the United States to study. This will be a continuation of that program. The government will match Hungary’s offer with another 50 scholarship spaces to our STEM students.

“STEM students are the best of our students in the country. In our bilateral relations with countries, we will continue to explore such opportunities for them. USA, Australia, China, Japan and South Korea are now accepting our students. For others, we will continue to work with them to make those avenues available.

“Our greatest resource is our human resource. We must continue to find ways to equip our people with the best knowledge and skills from the best universities in the world, people who can return and build our country into the future,” said Prime Minister Marape. 

STEM is a relatively new education program introduced by PM Marape to develop young people in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). 

This year some 40 STEM Grade 12 students from the country’s schools of Excellence were sent to the United States to pursue studies in these fields of Math and Sciences.