Divine Word Missionaries
Education · Madang
Divine Word University in Madang began as a small Catholic high school in 1968. Today it educates teachers, nurses, doctors, journalists and business leaders from every province of Papua New Guinea.
Our story
The school opened in Madang in 1968 as Divine Word Catholic High School, started by the Divine Word Missionaries together with the Holy Spirit Sisters. At the end of the 1970s it became Divine Word Institute, set up by an Act of Parliament, and in 1996 it was declared a university.
Students and staff often call the place "Diwai", the Tok Pisin word for tree, and the same name appears in the title of its published history, Diwai: A History of Divine Word University.
The university is ecumenical and coeducational. Fr Philip Gibbs SVD, who began his own ministry in remote Highlands parishes, was its President in 2024, and in 2016 Cecilia Nembou became the first woman to lead a university in Papua New Guinea as its vice-chancellor.
What students study
The university prepares people to work where Papua New Guinea needs them most, in classrooms, clinics, offices and newsrooms.
i.
Teacher training for PNG schools, including a bachelor's degree in primary teaching offered at the Wewak and Rabaul campuses.
ii.
Doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and rural health officers. The first medical students began in 2016 under Brother Jerzy Kuzma SVD.
iii.
Business, computing and information technology, now also taught at the Wewak campus so that students need not travel to Madang.
iv.
Communication and media studies, including journalism, which Fr Francis Mihalic SVD, founder of the Wantok newspaper, taught.
The university in numbers
3,500
students across the campuses in 2024
5
campuses: Madang, Port Moresby, Rabaul, Wewak and Tabubil
22
provinces of PNG represented among the students
1 in 3
students is Catholic; the university welcomes all denominations
Growing together
2002
The College of Allied Health Sciences in Madang amalgamates with the university, strengthening its health programmes.
2003
St Benedict's Teachers College in Wewak joins and becomes a campus. It now hosts the school of education and, more recently, a faculty of business and informatics.
2016
The first class of medical students begins in Madang, with Brother Jerzy Kuzma SVD as foundation head of medicine.
2019
A new diploma in general nursing starts at the Wewak campus, bringing health training closer to the Sepik region.
Every year
Near the end of the year, final-year students receive a cross and commit themselves to carry the values they learned at Divine Word into their communities.
Sources and further reading
A short summary compiled from public sources. Student numbers refer to the dates given.
More from our work
Education is one thread of the mission. See how the Word reaches people through parishes, catechists, newspapers and radio.