Papua New Guinea's Minister of Higher Education says the government is working to improve the quality of tertiary institutions and the intake system.
Malakai Tabar says the government is establishing new tertiary institutions such as the newly legislated move to build the Western Pacific University in Southern Highlands province.
He also says recent divisions and problems among the management of Unitech in Lae have been resolved.
Mr Tabar says there are also moves to scrutinise the performance of the institutions more closely.
"We are also looking at an audit, it's called an academic audit - external people who are part of some major work to basically assess the capability, capacity of university institutions in the country to help us achieve what we would like to achieve."
Malakai Tabar says one of the aims is to improve the intake of students from secondary school.
A new report prepared by officials of the Office of Higher Education has found that only 4,500 of the 17,000 students who sat for the national examinations last year were selected for tertiary institutions.
