A Solomon Islands academic says the US and Israel illegal bombing of Iran is “deeply alarming” and the Pacific region does not need “more global instability”

US President Donald Trump warned yesterday that Operation Epic Fury against Iran — “one of the largest, most complex, most overwhelming military offensives the world has ever seen” — will continue until all of Washington’s objectives are achieved.

The US military says it has sunk a dozen Iranian warships and is “going after the rest” in attacks which Trump said have killed 48 top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

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• RNZ’s live updates
• Other US-Israel attack on Iran reports

Six American service members have also been killed and five seriously injured.

At least three Pacific Island governments have advised their nationals stuck in the Gulf region to remain calm and leave when it is possible to do so.

The joint US-Israeli strikes — and Iranian retaliation — have turned international law on its head, according to some experts.

Reacting to the conflict, Solomon Islands National University’s vice-chancellor Dr Transform Aqorau said the Pacific must remain an “ocean of peace”.

‘Deeply alarming’
“The escalating conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran is deeply alarming,” he wrote in a Facebook post yesterday.

“Missiles are flying. Civilians are dying. Oil tankers have reportedly been hit. The Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical oil routes — is now closed.

“Some leaders speak of success. But war never has winners. The real cost is paid by ordinary people.

“And the Pacific will not be immune,” he wrote.

He said if oil supplies from the Gulf were disrupted, global fuel prices would surge.

“For Pacific Island countries — heavily dependent on imported fuel — this means higher electricity costs, more expensive transport, rising food prices, and increased cost of living.

“Our already fragile economies could face another severe external shock.”

Struggling with issues
Dr Aqorau said the region was struggling with a myriad of issues, including climate change, rising sea levels, drug problems, mental health pressures, youth unemployment, diabetes, slow economic growth, and growing populations.

“We do not need more global instability. We need peace,” he said.

“Pacific leaders have declared our region an ‘Ocean of Peace’ — a commitment to unity, sovereignty, dialogue, and non-militarisation. This is not just symbolic. It is strategic.

“Our islands have suffered before from global power rivalries and war. We know the long shadows they cast.”

He added that as the global order shifted, the Pacific must look more to each other for solidarity and cooperation.

‘Strength in regional unity’
“Our strength is in regional unity. Our security must be rooted in development, climate resilience, and human wellbeing — not militarisation.

“War diverts resources from schools to weapons, from hospitals to missiles, from climate action to destruction. Peace creates the space for progress.”

He said the Pacific must stand firm as an ocean of peace.

“In a world drifting toward conflict, let us choose stability. Let us choose cooperation. Let us choose peace.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

By Laraswati Ariadne Anwar in Suva

The Pacific Island countries are Indonesia’s neighbours. However, so far they are not very familiar to the ears of the Indonesian people.

One example is Fiji, the largest country in the Pacific Islands. This country, which consists of 330 islands and a population of 924,000 people, has actually had relations with Indonesia for 50 years.

In the context of regional geopolitics, Fiji is the anchor of Indonesian diplomacy in the Pacific.

• READ MORE:  When media freedom as the ‘oxygen of democracy’ and hypocrisy share the same Pacific arena — Pacific Media Watch
• Other Pacific Media Conference reports

Fiji is known as a gateway to the Pacific. This status has been held for centuries because, as the largest country and with the largest port, practically all commodities entering the Pacific Islands must go through Fiji.

Along with Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) of New Caledonia, Fiji forms the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).

Indonesia now has the status of a associate member of the MSG, or one level higher than an observer.

For Indonesia, this closeness to the MSG is important because it is related to affirming Indonesia’s sovereignty.

Human rights violations
The MSG is very critical in monitoring the handling of human rights violations that occur in Papua. In terms of sovereignty, the MSG acknowledges Indonesia’s sovereignty as recorded in the Charter of the United Nations.

The academic community in Fiji is also highlighting human rights violations in Papua. As a Melanesian nation, the Fijian people sympathise with the Papuan community.

In Fiji, some individuals hold anti-Indonesian sentiment and support pro-independence movements in Papua. In several civil society organisations in Suva, the capital of Fiji, the Morning Star flag of West Papuan independence is also raised in solidarity.

Even so, Fijian academics realise that they lack context in examining Indonesian problems. This emerged in a talanoa or focused discussion with representatives of universities and Fiji’s mainstream media with a media delegation from Indonesia. The event was organised by the Indonesian Embassy in Suva.

Academics say that reading sources about Indonesia generally come from 50 years ago, causing them to have a limited understanding of developments in Indonesia. When examined, Indonesian journalists also found that they themselves lacked material about the Pacific Islands.

Both the Fiji and Indonesian groups realise that the information they receive about each other mainly comes from Western media. In practice, there is scepticism about coverage crafted according to a Western perspective.

“There must be open and meaningful dialogue between the people of Fiji and Indonesia in order to break down prejudices and provide space for contextual critical review into diplomatic relations between the two countries,” said Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, a former journalist who is now head of the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific (USP). He was also chair of the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference Committee which was attended by the Indonesian delegation.

‘Prejudice’ towards Indonesia
According to experts in Fiji, the prejudice of the people in that country towards Indonesia is viewed as both a challenge and an opportunity to develop a more quality and substantive relationship.

In that international conference, representatives of mainstream media in the Pacific Islands criticised and expressed their dissatisfaction with donors.

The Pacific Islands are one of the most foreign aid-receiving regions in the world. Fiji is among the top five Pacific countries supported by donors.

Based on the Lowy Institute’s records from Australia as of October 31, 2023, there are 82 donor countries in the Pacific with a total contribution value of US$44 billion. Australia is the number one donor, followed by China.

The United States and New Zealand are also major donors. This situation has an impact on geopolitical competition issues in the region.

Indonesia is on the list of 82 countries, although in terms of the amount of funding contributed, it lags behind countries with advanced economies. Indonesia itself does not take the position to compete in terms of the amount of funds disbursed.

Thus, the Indonesian Ambassador to Fiji, Nauru, Kiribati, and Tuvalu, Dupito Simamora, said that Indonesia was present to bring a new colour.

“We are present to focus on community empowerment and exchange of experiences,” he said.

An example is the empowerment of maritime, capture fisheries, coffee farming, and training for immigration officers. This is more sustainable compared to the continuous provision of funds.

Maintaining ‘consistency’
Along with that, efforts to introduce Indonesia continue to be made, including through arts and culture scholarships, Dharmasiswa (a one-year non-degree scholarship programme offered to foreigners), and visits by journalists to Indonesia. This is done so that the participating Fiji community can experience for themselves the value of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika — the official motto of Indonesia, “Unity in diversity”.

Indonesia has also offered itself to Fiji and the Pacific Islands as a “gateway” to Southeast Asia. Fiji has the world’s best-selling mineral water product, Fiji Water. They are indeed targeting expanding their market to Southeast Asia, which has a population of 500 million people.

The Indonesian Embassy in Suva analysed the working pattern of the BIMP-EAGA, or the East ASEAN economic cooperation involving Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and the Philippines. From there, a model that can be adopted which will be communicated to the MSG and developed according to the needs of the Pacific region.

In the ASEAN High-Level Conference of 2023, Indonesia initiated a development and empowerment cooperation with the South Pacific that was laid out in a memorandum of understanding between ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).

At the World Water Forum (WWF) 2024 and the Island States Forum (AIS), the South Pacific region is one of the areas highlighted for cooperation. Climate crisis mitigation is a sector that is being developed, one of which is the cultivation of mangrove plants to prevent coastal erosion.

For Indonesia, cooperation with the Pacific is not just diplomacy. Through ASEAN, Indonesia is pushing for the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). Essentially, the Indo-Pacific region is not an extension of any superpower.

All geopolitical and geo-economic competition in this region must be managed well in order to avoid conflict.

Indigenous perspectives
In the Indo-Pacific region, PIF and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) are important partners for ASEAN. Both are original intergovernmental organisations in the Indo-Pacific, making them vital in promoting a perception of the Indo-Pacific that aligns with the framework and perspective of indigenous populations.

On the other hand, Indonesia’s commitment to the principle of non-alignment was tested. Indonesia, which has a free-active foreign policy policy, emphasises that it is not looking for enemies.

However, can Indonesia guarantee the Pacific Islands that the friendship offered is sincere and will not force them to form camps?

At the same time, the Pacific community is also observing Indonesia’s sincerity in resolving various cases of human rights violations, especially in Papua. An open dialogue on this issue could be evidence of Indonesia’s democratic maturity.

Republished from Kompas in partnership with The University of the South Pacific.

A New Zealander studying at the University of New Caledonia says students have been taught to use fire extinguishers as firefighters are unlikely to come help if there is an emergency.

It comes as days of unrest followed a controversial proposed constitutional amendment which would allow more French residents of New Caledonia to vote — a move that pro-independence protesters say would weaken the indigenous Kanak vote.

Six people have been confirmed dead so far in the state of emergency and there are reports of hundreds of people injured, numerous fires and looting in New Caledonia’s capital Nouméa.

• LISTEN TO RNZ: Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: French politics rocked as leaders plead for end
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Emma Royland is one of several international students at the university in Nouméa and said everyone was getting a bit “high-strung”.

“There’s this high-strung suspicion from every noise, every bang that ‘is that somebody coming to the university?'”

Royland said a roster had been set up so that someone was constantly up overnight, looking over the university campus.

Nights had become more quiet, but there was still unrest, she said.

Concern over technology
The vice-president of the university had visited yesterday to bring students some cooking oil and expressed the concern the university had for its expensive technology, Royland said.

“They are very worried that people come and they burn things just as a middle finger to the state.

“We’ve been told that ‘if you see a fire, it’s unlikely that the firefighters will come so we will try and manage it ourselves’.”

Royland said water to the part of Nouméa she was in had not been affected but food was becoming an issue.

The university was providing food when it could but even it was struggling to get access to it — snacks such as oreos had been provided.

But the closest supermarket that was open had “queues down the block” that could last three or four hours, Royland said.

Seeing ‘absolutely crazy things’
She was seeing “absolutely crazy things that I’ve never seen in my life”.

That included people holding guns.

“It is quite scary to know just 20 seconds down from the university there are guys with guns blocking the road.”

Yesterday, the NZ Defence Force (NZDF) said it would fly into New Caledonia to bring home New Zealanders while commercial services were not operating.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said New Zealand was waiting for the go-ahead from French authorities, based on safety.

“Ever since the security situation in New Caledonia deteriorated earlier this week, the safety of New Zealanders there has been an urgent priority for us,” Peters wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

“NZ authorities have now completed preparations for flights using NZDF aircraft to bring home New Zealanders in New Caledonia while commercial services are not operating.

‘Ready to fly’
“We are ready to fly, and await approval from French authorities as to when our flights are safe to proceed.”

Royland praised the response from New Zealand, saying other countries had not been so quick to help its citizens.

She said she had received both a call and email from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade asking her if she was in immediate danger and if she needed assistance straight away.

Everyone she had spoken to at the university seemed impressed with how New Zealand was responding, she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The University of the South Pacific — one of only two regional universities in the world — is facing a “gathering storm” over leadership, a management crisis and a looming strike, reports Islands Business.

In the six-page cover story in the latest edition of the regional news magazine this week, IB reports that pay demands by the 12-nation institution “headline other contentions such as the number of unfilled vacancies and the strain that the unions say it’s causing staff”.

The magazine also reported concerns about the “diminishing presence of Pacific Island academics” at what is a regional institution with 30,000 students representing Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

• READ MORE: USP staff vote in favour of strike action over ‘just and fair’ pay rise
• Other USP crisis reports

The world’s other regional university is the Jamaica-based University of the West Indies with five campuses in 18 countries and 50,000 students.

Another factor at USP is the “absence of female academics, and questions over the way some key contracts have been handled by management”.

Staff say there are no longer any female professors at the Pacific university and the institution recently failed to renew the contract of Nobel Prize-winning academic Dr Elisabeth Holland, formerly professor of ocean and climate change and the longtime director of USP’s Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), in controversial circumstances.

She had been one of USP’s most distinguished staff members and a key Pacific climate crisis voice in global forums.

Plunged into crisis
“In February 2021, the University of the South Pacific (USP) was plunged into crisis when vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia was unceremoniously thrown out of Fiji following a middle-of-the-night raid on his campus residence, accused by the then [FijiFirst] government of Voreqe Bainimarama of breaching the country’s immigration laws,” wrote the magazine’s Fiji correspondent Joe Yaya, himself a former graduate of the university who was a member of the award-winning USP student journalism team covering the George Speight attempted coup in May 2000.

“Within months of taking up the job in 2019, a bombshell report by Ahluwalia had alleged widespread financial mismanagement within the university under former administrations. It triggered an independent investigation by New Zealand-based accounting firm BDO and Ahluwalia’s eventual expulsion from Fiji.

“Three years later, USP finds itself beset by a host of new problems, most prominent among them an overwhelming vote this month by staff across Fiji (97 percent of academic staff and 94 percent of administration and support personnel) to go on strike over pay issues.”

Some of the concerns about pay and appointments are shared by key members of the USP Council and its senior management team.

“Leadership emerged as a major point of discussion in interviews conducted by Islands Business,” wrote Yaya.

Dr Ahluwalia reportedly retains firm support from some USP Council members, and also the student association.

However, Islands Business reported that the university management had refused to respond to the magazine’s questions.

Several interview efforts
“Over a seven-week period beginning January 22, we made several efforts to reach vice-chancellor Ahluwalia. In mid-February, his office said he would not be able to provide an interview while at Laucala Campus ‘because of his busy schedule’ (they specified ‘engagements with stakeholders and other university-related activities’),” the magazine reported.

“On March 6, Dr Ahluwalia responded in an email: ‘Many of the questions that you ask in relation to staff are being discussed with the respective unions and it is inappropriate for me to make comments through the media.

“‘Most of your other questions relate directly to matters that are the business of our Council and its deliberations are confidential so it is inappropriate too for me to discuss these matters outside of Council.'”

Islands Business also sought a response from Professor Pat Walsh, acting pro-chancellor of USP, and chair of the Council. Dr Walsh is the New Zealand government’s representative on the Council. He did not respond to Islands Business.

Former USP pro-chancellor and chair, now Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine, told Islands Business that during her term with USP, one of the “strong challenges we faced was the issue with the vice-chancellor”.

Professor Ahluwalia’s extended work contract is expected to be finalised at next month’s Council meeting which has been moved from May to April 26-27.

The vice-chancellor is due to meet the staff unions in mediation on Tuesday in a bid to avoid a staff strike.

• The full Islands Business report

University of the South Pacific staff unions are giving management “one more chance to come to the table” before they go on strike.

On Wednesday, the staff association received the secret ballot outcome from Fiji’s Labour Ministry, which confirmed that they had a mandate for strike action.

Association of USP Staff (AUSPS) general-secretary Rosalia Fatiaki told RNZ Pacific that staff have agreed to return to management to give them one last opportunity to meet the unions demands.

• READ MORE: Other USP strike reports

“We [are giving management] one more chance to come to the table and in good faith, let’s look at this. Hopefully we are able to resolve the issues that led us to take this action. By next week we expect a response,” she said.

Fatiaki said the USP management would be given a week to meet with the unions and 21 days to come to an agreement, adding if the management do not come to the table “the next course of action is strike action”.

“When staff go on strike the students are the people that will be most affected. That’s why we’re giving management another chance.”

Fatiaki said the unions were expecting management to negotiate a new offer.

Secret ballot
On March 6, AUSPS cast a secret ballot where 96 percent of its members voted in favour of strike action above the needed majority threshold.

Fatiaki said management had refused to negotiate salary adjustments and that was why staff might strike.

She said staff missed out on salary adjustments in 2019 and 2022.

The regional university gave staff a two percent pay rise in October 2022, January 2023, and January this year.

However, Fatiaki said it was “way below” the increase needed to match the cost of living in Fiji and unions were not consulted.

She said USP used to contribute an additional two percent above the national minimum for its superannuation contribution to senior staff but this was reduced to the minimum during the covid-19 pandemic and had not returned which the union was demanding.

Financial reasons
She said USP had not engaged with the union but had cited financial reasons for withholding pay.

Late last month, AUSPS members staged a protest calling for the resignation of the university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, for not being responsive to the union’s concerns.

In a statement to RNZ Pacific, USP said “we remain hopeful that through USP management, we can continue to have discussions with the AUSPS about their grievances and follow proper channels to meet their demands until an amicable solution is reached.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A former Fiji university head who was banned from returning to the country by the previous Bainimarama government has had her ban revoked.

Professor Shushila Chang, a former vice-chancellor of University of Fiji (UoF) in a daring move had departed during the covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, breaching the border restriction order at the time, to be with her sick husband in Australia.

The Immigration Department subsequently declared her a prohibited immigrant and UoF sacked her for unauthorised departure.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji education reports

She applied for a judicial review later that year but it was turned down by the High Court, which ruled the government’s decision could not be challenged through judicial review, as Fiji’s immigration law does not allow anyone to challenge the decision of a minister in any court.

However, Professor Chang said that she received a letter via email from the coalition government’s Immigration Minister Pio Tikoduaudua on January 22 informing her that she can now return to Fiji.

“The travel ban on Professor Chang has been revoked after a thorough review of her case,” Tikoduadua confirmed to RNZ Pacific on Friday.

“This decision aligns with our commitment to justice, transparency, and fairness.”

The minister said Professor Chang was a respected academic and former vice-chancellor of the UoF who could now return to Fiji.

Principles of natural justice
“This step reflects our government’s dedication to reassessing past actions to ensure they align with our values and principles of natural justice,” he said.

“We recognise the importance of academic freedom and the contributions individuals like Professor Chang can make to Fiji’s education and society.”

He said the Fiji government aims to foster an environment that encourages open dialogue and values the exchange of ideas, adding “lifting this ban demonstrates our commitment to these ideals.”

Chang, who was in the United States when she received the news, is now looking forward to visiting Fiji and reconnecting with friends.

She said her partner and children, who were “very concerned and supportive”, were also “happy and relieved” that her travel ban has been lifted.

“[My husband] was having severe mobility problems in Fiji such as losing his balance and headaches. Upon our return to Australia, the oncologist discovered he was suffering from lung cancer which had spread to the brain.

“It is fortunate we returned immediately and sought treatment. We are thankful he was able to receive treatment and is well.”

Invited back
Professor Chang said apart from prioritising her husband’s wellbeing to aid in his recovery, she had also been meeting and consulting with universities such as the University of Bordeaux (France) and Coventry (United Kingdom), and delivering training programmes.

She confirmed she was appointed as an academic advisor to Pacific Polytech — a private technical and vocational education and training (TVET) provider in Fiji.

She said it was “an exciting role as Pacific Polytech has a visionary mandate”.

“I have been invited to present a public lecture by Pacific Polytech on a globally accredited National Inspection and Testing Laboratory in Fiji.

“The intent is to improve the safety, quality and sustainability of all products from Fiji including water, food, soil, air, furniture, cement, food, wood and others.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The University of the South Pacific’s (USP) Tuvalu Campus, located in the capital Funafuti, is perhaps the smallest university in the world, but it offers a distinctive service.

The nation of Tuvalu comprises nine small atoll islands which have a combined population of just 11,400. The Tuvalu Campus itself is restricted to one small building with three classrooms, a conference room, a couple of office spaces and several mobile teaching and learning units.

Regardless of the size of the campus, USP Tuvalu’s campus director Dr Olikoni Tanaki from Tonga is positive about the university’s role and contribution.

• READ MORE: Other Kalinga Seneviratne articles at Asia Pacific Report

In a message on its website, he argues it is the people that “make this campus distinctive and we continuously strive to explore better ways to provide the best services to our communities, and that sustains our distinctiveness”.

In an interview in Funafuti, Isikeli Naqaya, a student-learning specialist at USP Tuvalu, said: “Every semester, the university caters to about 330 students who come from all nine islands.”

He added that some students were based in outer islands and study online, while the majority were based in Funafuti.

The campus was first established as an extension centre in the early 1980s. It is referred to as USP Tuvalu because of the multi-campus nature of USP.

USP is a single university with 11 branch campuses across the Pacific.

It is one of two regional universities in the world — the other is in the Caribbean — and is owned by 12 Pacific Island countries, with Tuvalu being one of them.

USP’s main campus is located in Suva, Fiji, and is known in the region as Laucala Campus, which is also the university’s administrative centre.

Catering to local needs
Tuvalu Campus is basically a regional centre of USP which helps to deliver courses that are designed at the Laucala Campus.

Local students can take certificate, diploma or degree courses of USP via the Tuvalu Campus but they need to register through the central administration at Laucala. USP Tuvalu also offers short courses and workshops catering to local needs.

“The majority of our students do the online mode, particularly those who are involved in degree courses,” Naqaya said. “A majority of those doing face-to-face [courses] are those who do foundation programmes”.

The foundation programmes include the compulsory module, English language skills for tertiary studies, that is taught in-person by Naqaya.

He explains that there are three delivery methods on campus: if there is a tutor available on campus to deliver the programme, it’s face to face. If there is no tutor, it is usually a blended mode or purely online.

Many of the in-person courses are short courses offered as adult education programmes to improve the skills levels needed for the local economy.

“We have just completed one on business communication with our Department of Fisheries here in Tuvalu. It went on for two weeks. These programmes are very popular here.

“Different government ministries and even non-governmental organisations come to us for this type of programme,” said Naqaya. “We have also delivered a course in the small seafood business.”

Fisheries staff
Most of the students for the small business course were staff of the Tuvalu Fisheries Department. USP Tuvalu advertised the course and staff interested in it sent in their applications which went to Laucala campus for selection.

The certificates for the graduates of the short courses are issued by USP in Fiji.

Because it is a branch campus, for USP Tuvalu to deliver a programme, it has to undergo a process. First, the Fiji campus consults with their Tuvalu counterparts to see whether they have a suitable person to deliver the course.

If there is one, Tuvalu receives the course material from Suva and the course is delivered in Tuvalu.

“If we don’t have the specialised staff, like [for a subject such as] cybercrime, for example, we would have someone to come over and deliver it. We first advertise it locally and if there is someone qualified here to do it, they will come and deliver it,” said Naqaya.

“Many of the small courses I have been delivering.”

School leadership programme
On November 27, USP Tuvalu officially launched the Graduate Certificate of School Leadership (GCSL) programme in Tuvalu, marking a crucial step towards empowering the country’s school leaders.

This is a collaborative effort between the USP’s Institute of Education (IoE), the Tuvalu Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports, and the Tuvalu Learning Project. The GCSL programme was developed in response to a request from Tuvalu, and emphasises the collaborative effort required for success.

IoE director Dr Seu’ula Johansson-Fua, delivering the opening remarks at the launch of the GCSL programme, described it as an uncommon instance of a member country seeking university-designed programmes, and highlighted the institution’s commitment to tailoring education to meet the specific needs of member countries.

The guest of honour for the launch ceremony, Director of the Tuvalu Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports Neaki Letia, highlighted the necessity of the GCSL programme and acknowledged the challenges faced by school leaders in the absence of proper leadership and management training.

“In your role as school leaders we demand reports, we demand . . . attainments. At one point in time, we sit around the table and ask each other, ‘Have we provided proper training for the tools that we ask them to provide?’ and the answer is ‘No, we have not’,” he said.

“So, this is why we requested USP, especially the Institute of Education, for support — to help us contribute ideas and instil knowledge to be a leader,” he explained.

Local research capacity
Another role of USP Tuvalu is to develop local research capacity, especially in local knowledge to tackle climatic change.

Vasa Saitala, a Tuvaluan, was the community research officer at USP Tuvalu until recently. She told University World News that a campus like Tuvalu is important to unite communities as some Tuvaluans have never been to school.

“There are changes due to climate change and through consultations with communities they would . . .  learn of what’s happening around us,” she said. “We have to do the studies about traditional knowledge and peoples’ awareness of climatic change, etcetera.”

Saitala has conducted a research project on gathering traditional knowledge about local indicators for different seasons and has developed a curriculum for community training on how to use this knowledge to protect against cyclones, droughts and so on. She has also been involved in a regional project of USP that gathers information about community understandings of climatic change issues.

“USP Laucala outsources the research to us. We do the research here and send the reports to Laucala,” she said.

“For short-term fisheries training and also gender issues, people from USP Fiji come here and work with us.”

Kalinga Seneviratne is a journalist, radio broadcaster, television documentary maker, media and international communications analyst. During 2023, he was a journalism programme consultant with The University of the South Pacific. This article was first published by University World News and is republished with permission.

The University of the South Pacific Council has reappointed Professor Pal Ahluwalia as vice-chancellor and president amid two days of staff protests.

The council says it has also heard from staff representatives and urged the unions and management to work collaboratively in the interest of the university.

The meeting was chaired by the acting pro-chancellor and chair of council and the New Zealand government representative, emeritus Professor Pat Walsh, in place of the pro-chancellor and chair of council Dr Hilda Heine, who is away from university business.

• READ MORE:  USP strike on the cards after council blocks staff papers in pay row
• USP union warns of industrial action if fair pay is not approved
• ‘All talk and no action’ say USP protesters calling for fair pay
• USP staff unhappy with VC, but he thanks them for ‘engagement’
• USP saga and other reports

In a statement released by USP, Professor Walsh welcomed the reappointment of the vice-chancellor and expressed his and the council’s endorsement of Professor Ahluwalia’s performance.

Professor Ahluwalia thanked the vouncil for its continued support, saying he looked forward to serving the university and the region.

The council noted reports from the pro-chancellor and the vice-chancellor and president on activities undertaken since their last report to council.

Professor Pal Ahluwalia said the university was delivering its priorities successfully against the backdrop of declining enrolment numbers and financial constraints.

Updated on finances
The council was updated on the finances of the university and noted the ongoing challenges USP continues to face.

The council adopted the proposed annual plan for 2024 and noted the financial strategies for the coming year.

It also approved the financial plan for 2024 and adopted the audited financial statements for the half-year ended 30 June 2023.

The council further noted the impact and risks associated with the financial challenges being faced by the university largely due to the decline in student numbers.

The management outlined its strategies for mitigating the challenges ahead.

The council also approved a report by the University Senate and instituted new programmes in Pacific TAFE.

In addition, the council endorsed a proposed scoping study to establish a Pacific Centre of Excellence for Deep Ocean Science and a report will be presented at the next council meeting to be held in Vanuatu in 2024.

Unions want VC out
Meanwhile, The Fiji Times reported yesterday in a front page report that staff unions said they wanted Professor Pal Ahluwalia out.

Vijay Narayan is news director of Fijivillage News. Republished with permission.

University of the South Pacific staff who once stood by vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia are now up in arms about his role in a decision by pro-chancellor Dr Hilda Heine to disallow a staff paper to be placed on the agenda of the 96th USP Council meeting being held today.

A joint press statement by the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the University of the South Pacific Staff Union (USPSU) said the blocked paper was in relation to “many unresolved issues faced by the staff over the period 2021 to May 2023”, which included pay and other matters.

The unions said staff from across the region met on November 22 and “are aggrieved and angry at the refusal of the PC (pro-chancellor) and VCP to allow their voice to be heard at council”.

• READ MORE: USP saga and other reports

“This is the same VCP that  the staff stood for in his hour of greatest need,” the unions said.

“The same staff who took risks to ensure that he was given worker justice and the opportunity to prove his worthiness of the VCP position.

“That he was a likely party to a decision to disallow the Staff paper is indicative of VCP’s leadership style which has become very clear to staff.”

The unions said USP management refuse to discuss or negotiate a salary adjustment for 2019-2023 and the final course of action was to bring the matter to the council for resolution in preference to industrial action.

What the VC had to say
In response to queries from The Fiji Times, Professor Ahluwalia sent a message he had issued to USP staff.

In it, he thanked them for joining him in a staff discussion which had a “record number of staff who attended with a high level of engagement.

“Whilst we have made considerable progresses, some issues remain outstanding,” the VC said.

He said USP now had a budget that would be presented to the council for approval today.

“Despite the alarming situation concerning declining student numbers, we have managed to ensure no redundancies, albeit, we will only be able to fill 30 per cent of our vacancies next year.”

Professor Ahluwalia said in terms of salary adjustments, the university had “made a great deal of progress, with two salary increases in October 2022 and January 2023 and an increment/bonus for all staff in the middle of the year (2023), and provisions have been made for another salary increase next year subject to council approving our 2024 budget.”

Questions sent to pro-vice chancellor Dr Hilda Heine yesterday remained unanswered.

Felix Chaudhary is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

In a keynote speech at the annual Pacific Update conference the region’s major university, Fiji deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad has warned delegates from the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand that Oceania is not in good shape because of problems not of their own making.

Professor Prasad was speaking at the three-day conference at the University of the South Pacific where he was the former dean of the Business and Economic Faculty,

He listed these problems as climate change, geopolitics, superpower conflict, a declining resource base in fisheries and forests, environmental degradation and debilitating health problems leading to significant social and economic challenges.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Update reports

He asked the delegates to consider whether the situation of the South Pacific nations is improving when they take stock of where the region is today.

“What is clear, or should be clear to all of us, is that as a region, we are not in entirely good shape,” said Professor Prasad.

Pacific Update, held annually at USP, is the premier forum for discussing economic, social, political, and environmental issues in the region.

Held on June 13-15 this year, it was co-hosted by the Development Policy Centre of the Australian National University (ANU) and USP’s School of Accounting, Finance and Economics.

Distant wars
In his keynote, Professor Prasad pinpointed an issue adversely affecting the region’s economic wellbeing.

“Our region has suffered disproportionally from distant wars in Ukraine,” he said. “Price rises arising from Russia’s war on Ukraine is ravaging communities in our islands by way of price hikes that are making the basics unaffordable.

“Even though not a single grain of wheat is imported from this region, the price increase for a loaf of bread across the Pacific is probably among the highest in the world.

“This is not unbelievable, not to mention unjust,” he noted, adding that this is due to supply chain failures in these remote corners of the world where the cost of shipping goods and services have spiralled.

Though he did not specifically mention the collateral damage from economic sanctions imposed by the West, he did point out that shipping costs have increased several hundred percent since the conflict started.

“In the backdrop of all these, or should I say forefront, is a runaway climate crisis whose most profound and acutest impacts are felt by small island states,” said Professor Prasad. “The impacts of climate change on our economies and societies are systematic; they are widespread, and they are growing”.

Rather than focusing on the problems listed by Professor Prasad, this year’s Pacific Update devoted a significant part of the event to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, where Australia has opened its borders to thousands of workers from the Pacific island countries with new provisions provided for them to acquire permanent residency in the country.

Development aid scheme
Australia is presenting this as a development assistance scheme where many academics presenting research papers showed that the remittances they send back help local economies by increasing consumption(and economic growth).

Hiroshi Maeda, a researcher from ANU, said that remittances play a crucial role in the economy of the Kingdom of Tonga in the Pacific, a country of just over 106,000 people.

According to recent census data from Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America quoted in a UN report, 126.540 Tongans live overseas. According to a survey by Maeda, temporary migration has helped to increase household savings by 38.1 percent from remittances sent home.

It also increases the expenditure on services such as health, education and recreation while also helping the housing sector.

There was a whole session devoted to the PALM scheme where Australian researchers presented survey findings done among Pacific unskilled workers, mainly working in the farm sector in Australia, about their satisfaction rates with the Australian work experience.

Dung Doan and Ryan Edwards presented data from a joint World Bank-ANU survey. They said there had been allegations of exploited Pacific workers and concerns about worker welfare and social impacts, but this is the first study addressing these issues.

They have interviewed thousands of workers, and the researchers say “a majority of the workers are very satisfied” and “social outcomes on balance are net positive”.

Better planning needed
When IDN asked a panellist about PALM and other migrant labour recruitment schemes of Australia such as hiring of nurses from the Pacific and the impact it is creating — especially in Fiji where there are labour shortages as a result — his response was that it needs better planning by governments to train its workers.

But, one Pacific academic from USP (who did not want to be named) told IDN later, “Yes, we can spend to train them, and Australia will come and steal them after six months”. She lamented that there needed to be more Pacific academics who made their voices heard.

One such voice, however, was Denton Rarawa, Senior Advisor in Economics of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) from the Solomon Islands. He pointed out that a major issue the Pacific region needed to address to reach the sustainable development goals (SDGs) was to consider reforms and policies that strike a balance between supporting livelihoods and reducing future debt risks.

“Labour Mobility is resulting in increasing remittances to our region,” but Rarawa warned, “It is having an unintended consequence of brain drain with over 54,000 Pacific workers in Australia and New Zealand at the end of last year.”

All Pacific island nations beyond Papua New Guinea and Fiji have small populations — many have just about 100,000 people, and some, like Nauru, Tuvalu and Kiribati, have just a few thousand.

Rarawa argues that even though “we may be small in land mass, our combined exclusive economic zone covers nearly 20 percent of the world’s surface as a collective, we control nearly 10 percent of the votes at the United Nations.

“We are home to over 60 percent of the world’s tuna supply — therefore, we are a region of strategic value”.

Rarawa believes that good Pacific leadership is needed to exploit this strategic value for the benefit of the people in the Pacific.

“The current strategic environment we find ourselves in just reinforces and re-emphasize the notion for us to seize the opportunity to strengthen our regional solidarity and leverage our current strategic context to address our collective challenges,” argues Rarawa.

“We need deeper regionalism (driven by) political leadership and regionalism (with) people-centred development (that) brings improved socio-economic wellbeing by ensuring access to employment, entrepreneurship, trade, finance and investment in the region.”

Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lanka-born journalist, broadcaster and international communications specialist. He is currently a consultant to the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific. He is also the former head of research at the Asian Media Information and Communication Center (AMIC) in Singapore. In-Depth News (IDN) is the flagship agency of the non-profit International Press Syndicate.

A leaked document authored by a recently recruited senior University of the South Pacific academic has again put a spotlight on the affairs of the regional institution.

The “strictly confidential” document, viewed by RNZ Pacific, is written by Professor Janusz Jankowski, the deputy vice-chancellor and vice-president (research and innovation) of USP.

The 13-page report is addressed to the USP Council chair and pro-chancellor — and former Marshall Islands president — Dr Hilda Heine and deputy chair and deputy pro-chancellor, Professor Pat Walsh.

• READ MORE: Academic ‘tsunami’ at USP shakes regional Pacific institution to core
• ‘USPgate’ allegations by Fijileaks
• Background to SCORI – is this a sell-out of Pacific’s ‘Sea of Islands’?
• The USP saga

It alleges several “issues, concerns and breaches with both USP policies and procedures” under USP’s vice-chancellor and president Pal Ahluwalia’s leadership.

Dr Jankowski — who was appointed to his role in November last year and has been working remotely from the UK — is calling for formal investigations of the vice-chancellor of the regional university.

RNZ understands that following Dr Jankowski’s report to the USP Council, he has been dismissed from his position.

It is also understood that USP staff unions are unhappy with a range of issues highlighted in the report and the sacking of Dr Jankowski.

RNZ Pacific has contacted Professor Ahluwalia and USP for comment.

In an email response, a USP spokesperson said on Wednesday that Dr Jankowski was no longer working at the university but that was not related to his complaint.

“Contrary to media reports, the vice-chancellor and president of USP does not have the delegated authority to terminate the employment of a deputy vice-chancellor,” the statement said.

“This authority rests with the University Council. In the matter pertaining to Professor Janusz Jankowski’s status with the university, he was until recently engaged as a fixed-term and part-time consultant, and this arrangement has now ended.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

An alleged bizarre swinging punch towards an academic from a senior management figure at the top of the University of the South Pacific (USP) is underscoring a deepening crisis in the regional organisation.

While it was not vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia who threw the punch, its plain the one time Fiji deportee is spectacularly failing USP. With falling student roles, and running out of already badly spent money, the once model of regional cooperation and dreams is heading toward a Fiji road smash.

Much of it will have been Professor Ahluwalia’s fault, but inaction on the part of the current pro-chancellor Dr Hilda Heine carries a burden of liability too.

• READ MORE: ‘USPgate’ allegations by Fijileaks
• Background to SCORI – is this a sell-out of Pacific’s ‘Sea of Islands’?
• The USP saga

Professor Ahluwalia has gone into a kind of cone of silence, neither calling the “senior management team” (SMT) for several months, nor dealing with urgent issues.

To those inside the Suva campus, the place seems on remote control. Money is allegedly disappearing, and the institution is struggling again to pay its bills. Nothing decisive is happening to rescue the organisation founded in 1968.

While tensions between senior academic staff in any university is not unknown, inside USP it has become deeply hostile. Various allegations are made about staff, and the place has descended into a kind of madhouse.

Professor Ahluwalia occasionally issues emails to criticise those who he thinks is bringing him down. He now directs who gets what jobs and where.

Management ‘explosion’
This seems to have been behind an explosion at one of the last SMTs where a top figure is said to have screamed “bastard” and swung a punch at another academic head. Another senior figure had to break it up.

Professor Ahluwalia took no action and the man who swung the punch has been told his place is safe. Consequently Professor Ahluwalia has a new loyalist in SMT.

The latest events at USP have deep political implications in host nation Fiji, where a new government says it is going to pay its USP dues of F$86 million. The previous FijiFirst government led by Voreqe Bainimarama refused to pay, claiming Professor Ahluwalia and other senior figures in USP were corrupt.

Professor Ahluwalia was kicked out of Fiji and took refuge in USP regional offices in Nauru and Samoa.

With Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in power in Suva, Professor Ahluwalia has been allowed back.

It may only be a coincidence, or not, that Bainimarama has subsequently been arrested and faces a charge of abuse of office. The charge specially cites his role over USP.

‘Colonial’ research deal
Now it is emerging that some in USP are party to a research deal with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (signed in Papua New Guinea) that has a decently colonial feel to it, an endorsement of transferring Pacific resources to India.

It is not what universities are supposed to be doing, especially those set up to advance Pacific people.

While Professor Ahluwalia and Dr Heine — former President of the Marshall Islands who in 2016 made history as the first woman leader of a Pacific Islands independent nation — might hope to cope with the new tsunami hitting them, the reality is that the big donors, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the European Union and the United Nations, are going to get pretty weary of this endless, destructive childishness at USP.

Michael Field is an independent journalist and author, and co-editor of The Pacific Newsroom. This article from “On The Wire” is republished with his permission.

The arena was filled with applauses and whistles when Fidelis Kamsnok walked up to the podium to receive his degree at the University of Papua New Guinea’s 68th graduation ceremony held at the Sir John Guise indoor complex.

Kamsnok, a father of three who hails from the East Sepik Province, is currently employed by the university as a member of Uniforce (the security company that guards the Waigani campus).

He had remained committed as a guard since joining the university in 2010 until yesterday when he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Professional Studies) degree.

• READ MORE: Other PNG education reports

“There were challenges as a father, working and taking on the course majoring in information and communication science.

“It was challenging in the family, looking after kids, and kids have their own needs. I have a son and two daughters, but I have to balance my needs as a father and theirs as well,” the Sepik man said.

After clocking 10 years with the university as a guard, Kamsnok applied for studies back in 2020 and the commitment he has put in his studies made it possible for him to join others and walk up to the stage on Tuesday with pride and obtain his degree.

He said the university had a policy where you had to be a serving member for seven years before applying for professional studies, adding that it took three years of studies for those who wanted to attain a degree in professional studies.

‘Balancing your life’
In his encouragement to others who are in similar positions, the guard said: “It’s through the faith you have.

“If you have to balance your life in helping kids, then you can do that, it’s possible.

“Everything is possible, you have to manage yourself.”

That is what Kamsnok did for the past three years.

While studying, he managed his time between studies and work and his family.

He spoke of how privileged he was to have achieved this degree, especially getting support from his family and mainly through his uncle’s endless help.

He said that without the support he would not have achieved his goal.

Marcia Negri is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

“The University of the South Pacific (USP) has been and continues to be a bedrock for regionalism. A resource owned by the region; for the region and a precious institution that needs to be protected in line with the vision of our forebearers.”

This was the message by USP vice-chancellor and president Professor Pal Ahluwalia during his ministerial banquet speech at the Pacific Education Ministers Conference (CPEM) at Auckland University this week.

The conference theme was “Empowering Education for Pacific People”.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Regional Education Framework reports

“I am acutely aware that we stand on the shoulders of giants; Pacific leaders who had the prescience of their ancient navigating forbearers, to set up an institution of higher learning and to set it on a course over the horizons in pursuit of two things excellence and equity,” he said.

Professor Ahluwalia said USP graduates had filled critical roles and many had gone on to be leaders across all sectors in their countries.

“This visionary foundation laid down by our Pacific forebearers has made USP the greatest success story of regional cooperation, where the richness of diversity of experiences has formed the foundation of hope and choice; and has established a network for learning to know; learning to do; learning to be; and learning to share,” Professor Ahluwalia said.

The main focus in the early years of USP had been on teacher education to support member governments with their education workforce as they gained their independence, over the years.

Shifts in regional priorities
However, USP had expanded its offerings in response to shifts in regional priorities and needs.

Professor Ahluwalia added that as these regional needs had become more divergent, the prospects of adequately meeting them — “while remaining true to our ongoing commitment to excellence and equity” — had become increasingly become a difficult challenge with diminishing resources.

“I am immensely proud of USP’s achievements and profoundly passionate about the exciting possibilities before us and over our horizons,” he said.

“However, I am under no illusions that we face sizeable challenges and to realise our full potential as a regional university, we need to be at our best to efficiently and effectively teach, learn and research in the service of our regional family.”

Professor Ahluwalia stressed the need to listen to the people as well as stakeholders, valuing relationships and partnerships in new and innovative ways — “and caring for regional communities and natural resources that we haven’t collectively cared enough for”.

“It is our responsibility now to ensure a cohesive articulation of tertiary qualifications across this network that address specific national needs of members of our family, while also pooling resources so that we can do things together where it makes sense to do so.”

Professor Ahluwalia said USP had had to be responsive and resilient and had much more to gain than to lose from genuine innovation.

“We are best positioned to claim leadership in areas no other organisation has the regional mandate, capability, need or courage to pursue,” he added.

Republished with permission.

The long-running row between the former Fiji government and the Suva-based regional University of the South Pacific (USP) has come back to haunt former Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, who spent a night in a police cell on March 9 before appearing in court, charged with abuse of office.

Not only did the “USP saga”, as it came to be known, cause a major rift between Fiji and the other 12 USP-member countries, but it may have contributed to the narrow loss of Bainimarama’s FijiFirst Party (FFP) in the December 2022 election.

Bainimarama’s abuse of office charges included accusations of interfering with a police investigation into financial malpractices at USP. If convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of 17 years in jail.

• READ MORE: Fiji’s Bainimarama granted bail, ordered to remain in country
• Former Fiji PM Bainimarama and suspended police chief charged
• The USP saga

But there are also serious questions about the future of the party that he co-founded, and which won successive elections in 2014 and 2018 on the back of his popularity.

A day before his indictment, there were surreal scenes at the Suva Central Police Station, as police officers marched an ashen-faced Bainimarama to his cell to spend the night before his court appearance the next morning.

This, under the full glare of live media coverage, with journalists tripping over themselves to take pictures of the former military strongman, who installed himself as prime minister after the 2006 coup and ruled for 16 years straight.

Arrested, detained and charged alongside Bainimarama was his once-powerful police chief, Sitiveni Qiliho, who managed a wry smile for the cameras. Both were released on a surety of F$10,000 (about NZ$7300) after pleading not guilty to the charges.

Shut down police investigation
It is alleged that in 2019, the duo “arbitrarily and in abuse of the authority of their respective offices” shut down a police investigation into alleged irregularities at USP when former vice-chancellor Rajesh Chandra was in charge.

In November 2018, Chandra’s replacement, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, revealed large remuneration payments to certain USP senior staff, some running to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Fiji government, unhappy with Ahluwalia’s attack on Chandra, counter-attacked by alleging irregularities in Ahluwalia’s own administration.

As the dispute escalated, the Fiji government suspended its annual grant to the USP in a bid to force an inquiry into its own allegations.

When an external audit by the NZ accountants BDO confirmed the original report’s findings, the USP executive committee, under the control of the then Fiji government appointees, suspended Ahluwalia in June 2020.

This was in defiance of the USP’s supreme decision-making body, the USP Council, which reinstated him within a week.

Samoa’s then Deputy Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa (who is now prime minister, having won a heavily contested election of her own) said at the time that Ahluwalia’s suspension had been a “nonsense”.

The then Nauruan President Lionel Aingimea attacked a “small group” of Fiji officials for “hijacking” the 12-country regional university.

Students threatened boycott
The USP Students’ Association threatened a boycott of exams, while more than 500 signatures supporting the suspended vice-chancellor were collected and students protested across several of USP’s national campuses. All these events played out prominently in the regional news media as well as on social media platforms.

With Fiji’s national elections scheduled for the following year, the political toll was becoming obvious. However, Bainimarama’s government either did not see it, or did not care to see it.

Instead of backing off from what many saw as an unnecessary fight, it doubled down. In February 2021, around 15 government police and security personnel along with immigration officials staged a late-night raid on Professor Ahluwalia’s Suva home, detained him with his wife, Sandra Price, and put them in a car for the three-hour drive to Nadi International Airport where, deported, they were put on the first flight to Australia.

The move sent shockwaves in Fiji and the region.

To many, it looked like a government that had come to power in the name of a “clean-up campaign” against corruption was now indulging in a cover-up campaign instead. The USP saga became political fodder at opposition rallies, with one of their major campaign promises being to bring back Professor Ahluwalia and restore the unpaid Fiji government grant that stood at F$86 million (about NZ$62 million) at the time.

A month before the 2022 polls, a statement targeting the estimated 30,000 staff and student cohort at USP, their friends and families, urged them to vote against FijiFirst, which would go on to lose government by a single parliamentary vote to the tripartite coalition led by another former coup leader, Sitiveni Rabuka.

Albanese official visit
It was Rabuka who greeted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on his first official visit to Fiji last week. During talks at the Australian-funded Blackrock military camp, Albanese reportedly secured Rabuka’s support for the AUKUS deal.

Australia is keen for stability in Fiji, which has not had a smooth transition of power since independence, with democratically elected governments removed by coups in 1987, 2000 and 2006. Any disturbance in Fiji has the potential to upset the delicate balance in the region as a whole.

For Bainimarama and his followers, there is much to rue. His claimed agenda — to build national unity and racial equality and to rid Fiji of corruption — earned widespread support in 2014.

His margin of victory was much narrower in 2018 but Bainimarama managed to secure a majority in Parliament to lead the nation again.

His electoral loss in 2022 was followed by a series of dramatic events, which first saw Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, his deputy in all but name, disqualified from holding his seat in Parliament.

Bainimarama went next, suspended for three years by Parliament’s privileges committee for a speech attacking head of state Ratu Wiliame Katonivere. He chose to resign as opposition leader.

Following his March 10 hearing, Bainimarama addressed the media and a few supporters outside court, adamant that he had served the country with “integrity” and with “the best interests” of all Fijians at heart.  The former leader even managed to smile for the cameras while surrounded by a group of followers.

With nearly double the personal votes of the sitting PM Rabuka under Fiji’s proportional representation voting system, Bainimarama’s supporters still harboured some hope that he could return as the country’s leader one day.

However, his health is not the best. He is now out of Parliament and bogged down by legal troubles. Is the sun now setting on the era of Bainimarama and FijiFirst?

Dr Shailendra Bahadur Singh is a frequent contributor to Asia Pacific Report and is on the editorial board of the associated Pacific Journalism Review. This article was originally published by the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter and is republished here with the author’s permission.

The head of the University of the South Pacific has welcomed the return of payments by the new Fiji coalition government, reports ABC Pacific Beat.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka announced an initial payment of $7 million to the university from Fiji’s current budget.

Apia-based vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia, who has been working in exile from Samoa and Nauru, welcomed the payment.

He said he would be visiting Fiji in February, the first time he will back in country since his deportation two years ago by the FijiFirst government.

Pacific Media Watch: It is understood the host country Fiji owes USP more than $80 million in grants since the FijiFirst government withheld payments.

Nick Fogarty, Reporter

Fiji’s Minister of Finance and deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad says all coalition partners in the new government have agreed to a closer relationship with the Suva-based regional University of the South Pacific (USP).

He said government would restore confidence in USP and respect the governance structure of the institution.

Professor Biman Prasad said that it was a commitment made by all coalition partners in government.

• READ MORE: Professor thrilled over USP return – Fiji to pay $90m university debt
• Other USP reports

He said Fiji would now be “a real partner” with USP.

“We’re going to restore that confidence, we’re going to respect the governance structure of the university,” he said.

“This means that when the university council makes a decision, we as members in that council will respect that decision, unlike the previous government and their reps, who disregarded it because they didn’t win in the council.

“Things didn’t go in their favour; they tried to [withhold] the grant of the university through some bogus claim that there should be more investigation.

“None of that was true, none of that was reasonable.”

Vice-chancellor ban already lifted
He said the ban on vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia, who was forced to become based at USP’s Samoa campus after being deported from Fiji in 2021, had already been lifted.

“As you know, the Prime Minister has already lifted the ban on Professor Pal Ahluwalia who was deported in the middle of the night,” he said.

“That was a sad thing for this country — it was an attack on democracy, it was an attack on academic freedom.

“So we are very pleased that our government has been able to remove that and we look forward to a very cooperative relationship with the University of the South Pacific and indeed with all other universities in the country because we believe that empowering the universities, giving them academic freedom, giving them autonomy is good for our students, good for our staff, good for the country.”

Professor Prasad said the government would work closely with tertiary institutions in the country.

“This government is going to work closely with the universities and other tertiary institutions to make sure that we empower them, we use resources at those universities to help government to work in policy areas, analyse data.

“As a government, we are going to be very, very liberal with the academic community in this country because we want them to know that this is a government which is going to be open, which is going to help them do research because we will not be afraid of critical research being done by academics, whether they are in Fiji or from outside.

“They will have access to data wherever possible. They will have access to the processes and the support to do research in critical areas.

“That will be very, very important for the government.”

#Fiji plans to ‘restore confidence’ in USP partnership, says Professor Prasad #AsiaPacificReport @fijitimes @bimanprasad #FijiPol #education #academicfreedom @USPlibrary @pal_vcp @ShailendraBSing @USPWansolwara @shrek45 https://t.co/MHM0kTlr2k pic.twitter.com/tXybbQwXkz

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) January 3, 2023

Half century of innovation
Pacific Media Watch reports that the University of the South Pacific is one of only two regional multinational universities in the world — the other is in the West Indies.

USP is jointly owned and governed by 12 member countries — Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The university has campuses in all member countries with Fiji having three campuses.

For more than a half century, USP has been leading the Pacific with distinctive contributions in research, innovation, learning, teaching and community engagement.

Rakesh Kumar is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Exiled University of the South Pacific vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia says he is thrilled at the prospect of returning to Fiji.

Speaking to The Fiji Times from Los Angeles in the United States yesterday, he said Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka — when he was in opposition — made a commitment to pay Fiji’s outstanding debt of $90 million to USP and to allow him to return to Fiji.

“Mr Rabuka said it, National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad said it, and the Social Democratic Liberal Party leader also said it,” Professor Ahluwalia said.

• READ MORE: Exiled USP chief, Dr Lal now free to enter Fiji, says Rabuka
• USP unions slam Fiji’s Sayed-Khaiyum for ‘damaging’ Pacific university
• Other USP saga reports

“So it’s part of all three parties’ manifestos and part of their public statements, so we as a university are delighted that this amount that has been outstanding for so long will finally come to the university.

“It’s excellent news, not just for the Fijian students but for the entire region because the region has been carrying Fijian students for quite a while and there will now be a chance for us to do a lot of things that we have deferred and not been able to do, particularly issues around maintenance.

“It also means we can now aggressively look for quality academic staff.”

Rabuka issued a statement on Boxing Day saying the prohibition order against Professor Ahluwalia had been lifted and he was welcome to travel to Fiji at any time.

Professor Ahluwalia and his wife Sandra Price claimed that on Wednesday February 3, 2021, 15 people made up of immigration officials and police stormed into their USP home and forcefully removed them at about 11.30pm.

They claimed they were driven the same night to Nadi International Airport and deported on the morning of Thursday, February 4, to Australia.

The FijiFirst government on February 4, 2022 issued a statement that the Immigration Department had ordered Professor Aluwahlia and his partner Sandra Price to leave Fiji with immediate effect following alleged “continuous breaches” by both individuals of Section 13 of the Immigration Act.

Government said under Section 13 of the Immigration Act 2003, no foreigner was permitted to conduct themselves in a manner prejudicial to the peace, defence, public safety, public order, public morality, public health, security, or good government of Fiji.

Fiji now ‘free country’
RNZ Pacific reports that Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad said all three parties in the coalition had promised this in their election campaigns and manifestos.

The former FijiFirst government have withheld the payments since 2019 over a protracted battle with Professor Ahluwalia, now operating in exile out of Samoa.

“They didn’t like a man who was doing the right thing who exposed corruption within the university,” Professor Prasad said.

“And it has done you know, to some extent, terrible damage not only to the university, but also the unity in the whole region.”

In July, the two unions representing staff at the university said the Fiji government owes the institution F$78.4 million and the debt has increased since then.

“Well, I can’t tell you the timetable, but all I can say is…that the university will receive the appropriate funding, as well as the government will pay what is due as a result of the previous government withholding the grant to the university,” Professor Prasad said.

His revelation comes after the government statement by Prime Minister Rabuka inviting Professor Ahluwalia to return to Fiji.

Personal apology
Rabuka said he wanted to apologise to Professor Ahluwalia in person upon his arrival for the way he had been treated by Fiji.

The prime minister has also invited the widow of exiled Fijian academic, Professor Brij Lal, who passed away on Christmas Day last year to bring home his ashes for burial at Tabia near Labasa.

Professor Prasad said they look forward to welcoming home more Fijians and expatriates exiled during Voreqe Bainimarama’s 16-year-reign.

“Fiji is now a free country. We will welcome everyone who wants to come to Fiji. No one should fear about any kind of vindictiveness or harassment,” Professor Prasad said.

“That is what we promised during our campaign, and that is what this government will deliver.”

Felix Chaudhary is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with Fiji Times permission. This article is also republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Professor thrilled over #USP return – #Fiji to pay $90m #university debt #AsiaPacificReport @fijitimes #rnzpacific @pal_vcp @ShailendraBSing @wansolwara @USPWansolwara @GeraldP87 #Fijipol #education #SitiveniRabuka @bimanprasad https://t.co/bC0ECuzF7d pic.twitter.com/laTlgEH3bf

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) December 26, 2022

Allegations of corruption, nepotism and bad governance at the Lautoka-based University of Fiji have been made by a whistleblower who allegedly lifted the lid on a veritable can of worms.

However, the head of the institution, vice-chancellor Professor Shaista Shameem, has rejected the claims, describing them as “wild allegations” by disgruntled former employees.

Asia-Pacific Report has sighted a four-page document titled “The Nexus of Corruption at the University of Fiji” which lists 10 allegations, including mismanagement of funds gifted to the university.

• READ MORE:  University of Fiji says allegations of corruption are false
• Call for independent investigation into Uni of Fiji accusations
• Uni Fiji VC hits out at NFP leader

The allegations were put to Professor Shameem who immediately established a Litany Inquiry Commission (LIC) comprising staff from the five schools at the university

She responded to RNZ Pacific late yesterday after initially sending a message “to all staff and students at the university that she will expect quality performance from all at the university pursuant to the new Strategic Plan 2022-2026”.

Although she was appointed in March, Professor Shameem took up her appointment officially on December 10 — International Human Rights Day. As a human rights lawyer, Professor Shameem believed that the date she chose for the announcement to officially take up her position was symbolic for her.

“I did not want to be the VC. It took a lot of persuasion. I was on retirement track. Then I decided I would take up the offer and that I would do it from 10 December,” she told Asia-Pacific Report.

Prasad calls for independent investigation
“National Federation Party (NFP) leader and former economics professor at the University of the South Pacific Biman Prasad told RNZ Pacific that allegations of fraudulent behaviour should be investigated, especially since the University of Fiji had received more than F$2.7 million (NZ$1.8 million) for the 2020-2021 financial year.

“Corruption allegations of this nature at any tertiary institution is a matter of serious concern,” he said.

The document’s release to media revealed there was no academic freedom in Fiji, claimed Professor Prasad.

“Academic freedom does not necessarily mean that academics can say whatever they want to say about things outside of the university, but academic freedom also means that staff in the university should be able to raise the issues with the management with respect to any suggestion that there might be corruption or bad governance,” he said.

“If the issues involve the council members, then it is incumbent upon the council to appoint some independent organisation — such as a reputable accounting firm not influenced by any state apparatus within the country — to give those who are making the allegations and those the allegations are made against … a fair hearing.

“Then any governance issue is dealt with in a proper way.”

Professor Shameem responded strongly by saying “Professor Biman Prasad should take a good hard look at his own backyard before shooting off without any evidence being presented at all in the wild allegations”.

‘Terminated over lack of performance’
“The allegations sent to Radio New Zealand were made by disgruntled and disgraced former employees who were terminated due to lack of performance or breach of Fiji’s law and others who have not performed but expect to be promoted or given permanent employment,” she said.

“The University of Fiji will not be bullied.”

“As far as I am aware, no staff member has raised any matter to do with corruption or bad governance. The University of Fiji has a whistleblower policy which keeps identities confidential and ensures that independent investigation of any allegation takes place promptly.

“No one has so far made such allegations through the whistleblower process. Evidence of bad management practices were certainly present at the University of Fiji in the previous administrations, but a clean-up has since taken place and we are back on the right path”, Professor Shameem said.

She claimed Professor Biman was out of date on the issue.

“Politicians should get themselves up to scratch otherwise no one will have any faith in them come next elections,” she said.

‘Issues had been resolved’
“Over a two-day period of inquiry, the LIC was informed by the staff who had expressed similar views internally that at no time had they sent either Radio New Zealand or a third person their views because their issues had either been resolved by the university administration or they had understood why the university had made the decisions that it had on all the issues they initially found difficult.”

The 10 allegations are about an online learning and teaching software (Top Hat) as used mainly in in American universities, such as the University of Alabama, Rutgers University, and the University of Iowa; purchase of four new cars at a time when staff bonuses and benefits had been suspended and some staff were alleged to have their salaries cut; and a $500,000 donation by the Rajendra Sahay Trust in 2019 for the establishment of a health centre; and issues over the opening of a second café.

However, the document claimed this was the “tip of the iceberg” at the privately owned university, which is run by the Hindu religious organisation Arya Prathinidhi Sabha of Fiji.

The university is based in Lautoka and has a campus in Suva. It has about 1000 students and 100 staff.

The son of a factory worker made New Zealand history last week, as the first Pacific person to be appointed to the eminent leadership position in academia at a New Zealand university.

“I’m really excited to be the AUT vice-chancellor and with that excitement comes a sense of its significance with the sector which I work in and have given much of my life to, actually looking like the people it serves. So I’m really excited to be part of that story,” Toelesulusulu told Asia-Pacific Report.

• READ MORE: Pacific scholar Dr Damon Salesa named AUT’s next vice-chancellor
• ‘Transform lives’ with education, new vice-chancellor for AUT tells Pasifika

“AUT is a place where talent can find opportunity and I would hope that lots of other people would want to express that excitement by wanting to come to AUT,” he says.

“What matters more is the work of the whole institution, that the university itself embraces its many different communities, its Māori students, its Pacific students and already AUT is a little bit known for that and what we can do is to build even more deeply on that.”

Professor Steven Ratuva, director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury, says Dr Salesa’s appointment is a significant milestone for the Pacific.

“It is something he richly deserves, and he has been working hard for and it is a good career choice, it is good for the Pacific academic community, and I congratulate him for his contribution to Pacific education.”

South Auckland priority
Currently pro-vice-chancellor Pacific at the University of Auckland (UOA), Dr Salesa takes up his new role as vice-chancellor at AUT in March.

From just up the hill at UOA, he has observed AUT, and likes what he saw.

“I’ve really admired the way AUT prioritised and served its students, particularly the students of South Auckland and mature students, and that is one of reasons I was really interested in the job,” he says.

“Just because those communities of learners for whom education really matters, AUT has really embraced them and that is part of what is exciting about AUT — that is why I wanted to come across and join AUT.

“There is no question that the campus down south and campus on the shore bring universities into the communities that they serve and as well as being global institutions they are local institutions.

“If you have heart to service and you keep the students at the very centre of the decisions you make, you get great results like you see AUT deliver in South Auckland and the North Shore,” he says.

Strengthening Māori and Pacific research
Pacific and Māori research is one area he wants to strengthen as well as build relationships with other institutions in the Pacific.

“Certainly, one of the things I have as a priority is to make sure that AUT is in all of the partnerships that it needs to be in, that we are serving our communities and our partners as well in a reciprocal relationship from which everyone grows.

“That will mean we have to be a little bit selective, but it will also mean that Pacific partnerships and other partnerships are critical to the very centre of the university, and they are not seen as being marginal because we’re a university in the middle of the South Pacific.

“We need to honour that and be connected to our whanau around the Pacific.

“It is absolutely important that we are having those conversations, we need to understand how we can support the University of the South Pacific (USP) and their work, how we can find benefit and value for New Zealand and AUT students and staff from those relationships, so certainly we will be taking that seriously.

“But certainly, USP is a special institution in our region, so we need to be strategic in how we support and partner with them.”

Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, head of journalism at USP, says “as many have pointed out, the appointment is well deserved. He was not given any preference as a Pacific Islander. He was picked on merit.

A Pacific ‘trailblazer’
“As a trailblazer, he will inspire many Pacific Islanders and Pacific people beyond New Zealand as the vice-chancellor of one of the finest universities in our region.

“Through my association with the Pacific Media Centre (PMC), I have participated in AUT journalism-related workshops, seminars, and conferences.

“I have a high regard for the AUT and the PMC, long a flagship of the university for its cutting-edge research and publications in Pacific journalism.

“I hope the PMC is revived as journalism in the region has been struggling due to economic and political factors. Pacific journalism needs support and leadership and AUT can become the beacon it was,” Associate Professor Singh says.

Dr Salesa was in the dark about the PMC which has now been in hiatus for almost a year for unknown reasons.

“I’d have to learn more about that, I don’t know the ins and outs of that situation, but these are things that have to be collaborative, they have to be built with the kind of collective will and expertise of the university especially.

“There is no question that AUT will be prioritising Māori research and Pacific research among its other amazing specialisations,” Dr Salesa says.

AUT ‘anchored in Pacific’
“AUT will always be anchored in the Pacific region and obviously has a long history of educating people from the Pacific region and we hope to continue and deepen that.

“Those partnerships will speak directly to AUT’s future, and this is a period in time where everyone is just hoping for the best possible outcome for USP, and we will be looking to support in ways that make sense for them and AUT.”

Dr Salesa is testament to the fact that people of a Pacific background or ethnicity can succeed and excel — not just in sport, but in every facet of society.

“I think we’ve always known, as the saying goes, talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn’t — and what AUT is the story of, is making opportunity available to diverse groups of talented people.

“We know if you make opportunities available to those who have been denied them, they will flourish if they are supported in the right way.

“I have no doubt what people will see in my own story is that the kinds of diverse talent we have in New Zealand that too often we haven’t made the most of, can come to AUT and thrive.

“I hope that people see in that all kinds of stories because I am also the son of a factory worker, and I am also a first-generation university attendee people can understand that when talent gets opportunity and support it drives them and that’s what I am hoping you’ll see and that is what success at AUT is all about and its story,” the Auckland suburb of Glen Innes-raised Dr Salesa says.

Education pathway
A strong advocate for education, he wanted young Māori and Pasifika people to pursue that pathway rather than young school leavers joining the workforce.

“We know that education is one of the proven pathways to wellbeing and prosperity for families, and that at the same time we know that many families need their young people to go out and work.

“So, it is absolutely critical that we find ways to get talented young Pacific, Māori and other students into high value employment and education is one of the ways of doing that.

“What we need is for them to be ambitious, to have high expectations of themselves and their families and it is for AUT and other universities to deliver that transformational learning which is the secret to those strong and prosperous futures,” Dr Salesa says.

Transformative learning allowed people to change and have more than one career.

“We know all of us are living in the most uncertain and highly changeable times. In the old days everyone imagined they would have just one career and many people now are realising they might not only change jobs but change careers and they have also come to realise that in many, many of our jobs technology sits at the centre of opportunity and the ability to be effective.

“AUT is the kind of institution that is built for these times, it offers all sorts of flexible learning offerings and a truly diverse student body and it is New Zealand’s tech university.

Transformative learning
“So transformative learning is the kind of learning that actually transforms individual students lives where you can see outcomes writ large and that’s what I’m hoping to support further development at AUT so that people understand AUT is a great place to go, to study and get a great job but also prepare themselves for a great future,” Dr Salesa says.

Then there was the inevitable vexed question, whether it was time for another university, namely AUT, to start a new medical school? To which he played with a straight bat.

“At the moment AUT is one of the great providers of the health workforce in New Zealand and certainly for the short term we will be focusing on doing an even better job of doing that.

“Delivering a health workforce and the health researchers that New Zealand needs. That is obviously a critical contribution in the age of the pandemic, but again that will be built collaboratively with my colleagues at AUT.

“I think it is a very challenging time for universities across the board and particularly where next year is going to be where students have had two years of lockdown learning in Auckland so we have to make sure that the university can support them in their ambitions to be successful at AUT.

“That is going to be one of the great challenges, not just facing AUT, but all the tertiary providers that have suffered lockdowns in Auckland.”

Pacific scholar and senior university sector leader Toeolesulusulu Dr Damon Salesa has been appointed as the next vice-chancellor of Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland University of Technology (AUT), AUT News reports.

The appointment by the University Council at Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau AUT was announced today and is the result of a global search after current vice-chancellor Derek McCormack announced his retirement in March 2022 after 18 years at the helm.

Toeolesulusulu is a prizewinning historian and former Rhodes Scholar. After obtaining his MA with first class honours at the University of Auckland, he completed his doctoral studies at Oxford University.

He is the author and editor of many books and academic articles including Island Time: New Zealand’s Pacific Futures (BWB, 2017) and Racial Crossings (Oxford University Press, 2011) which won the international Ernest Scott Prize in 2012. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and currently serves on their council.

“For 20 years AUT has been the most remarkable story in Aotearoa New Zealand tertiary education, showing how the pursuit of excellence can be set on a foundation of service, inclusion and close relationships with our communities, businesses and stakeholders,” said Toeolesulusulu.

“AUT is New Zealand’s tech university, a pacesetter in the social, educational and economic transformation in Aotearoa New Zealand. I am excited by the opportunity to lead AUT on the next leg of its journey of excellence, Te Tiriti partnership, equity and service to our city, nation, region and the world.”

His current role is as pro vice-chancellor Pacific at the University of Auckland where he also serves on the executive committee tasked with the strategic leadership and governance of the organisation.

Pacific programme in US
Toeolesulusulu has also served as co-head of Te Wānanga o Waipapa (School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies) at the University of Auckland and previously worked at the University of Michigan for 10 years, including in roles as director of the Asian Pacific Islander American Studies Programme and as an associate professor in the History Department and Programme in American Culture.

An Aucklander, Toeolesulusulu was born and bred in Glen Innes, the son of a factory worker from Samoa and a nurse from the Far North. He is married with two teenage daughters.

Toeolesulusulu retains strong connections to many of Auckland’s communities, especially in South Auckland. He has been an innovator at the interface between schools and universities and has been an important leader and supporter of the work of schools, in pedagogy, curriculum and governance.

AUT chancellor Rob Campbell said the council was looking forward to welcoming Toeolesulusulu Dr Salesa to AUT next year.

“We are impressed by Damon’s vision of the critical contribution AUT can make to Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific through quality research and teaching, and the role of Te Tiriti o Waitangi throughout the work of the university,” he said.

A major development out of the besieged University of the South Pacific has meant that two main characters in a saga that threatens the financial viability of the regional institution are now out of the University Council.

Controversial chair of the USP Council audit sub-committee Mahmood Khan of Fiji was voted out of the position at the council meeting that was held virtually yesterday.

However, he remains as one of Fiji’s 5 representatives in the council.

• READ MORE: Secret report revelations at USP
• Other reports on the USP saga

Equally controversial council chair and pro-chancellor of the university, Winston Thompson, will be replaced in the position by Hilda Heine, former President of the Marshall Islands, one of the 12 Pacific Island nations that co-own USP, together with Fiji.

She takes over the pro-chancellor and chair of the council position when Thompson completes his term on December 31.

Thompson together with the ardent support of Khan and Fiji’s Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum have been at the forefront leading moves to get USP Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Pal Ahluwalia removed.

This began with the leak to Islands Business magazine in 2019 of a confidential report authored by Ahluwalia alleging numerous cases of administrative and financial mismanagement and abuse by the previous university administration.

It saw the purported suspension of the VC by Thompson and Khan and culminating in his deportation together with his wife from Fiji in late January of this year.

Ahluwalia is leading the university from the USP campus in Nauru where he awaits the opening of flights into Samoa, where the office of the vice-chancellor will be now based.

Samisoni Pareti is publisher and managing director of Islands Business magazine. This article is republished with permission.

A public relations disaster for Fiji just as Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum head to Glasgow for COP26 as one of Britain’s leading media outlets — The Independent — carries out a detailed investigation into events at the University of the South Pacific.

Fiji’s reputation in Britain and the academic community the world over has suffered a grievous blow.

What emerges is a sordid tale of cronyism, bullying, repression and a frontal assault on regional cooperation by the FijiFirst government that has undermined Pacific solidarity and adversely affected the education of ordinary Pacific Islanders at USP, including Fijian young people.

• READ MORE: The long-running USP governance saga

The length and scope of this article and its impeccable pedigree guarantee that it will become the dominant global narrative about events at USP and have a far reaching impact on Fiji’s reputation, including its current role as Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum.

And for what? For Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s ego.

A festering wound that will cripple the FijiFirst government all the way to the 2022 election, when its prized “youth vote” will get to make its own pronouncement at the ballot box on events at USP.

Be genuinely dismayed at the AG’s shortsightedness and Bainimarama’s stupidity for allowing his number 2 to embark on a battle he simply cannot win.

This is what The Independent describes as a “long read”:

“At first there is a woman’s voice coming from the back of the house in the dead of night. Then there is repeated ringing of the doorbell. Other voices, male ones, are coming through the front door now; the voices are authoritative and increasingly impatient. Instructions are barked, telling those inside to open up. Fists bang the door. Soon plainclothes police officers are inside and shortly afterwards 63-year-old Professor Pal Ahluwalia and his wife Sandy Price are forcibly escorted to the airport. The vice-chancellor of the most prestigious university in Fiji is being deported on the orders of the Fijian government.

“The University of the South Pacific (USP) is pretty. Its main campus building in Fiji has a clean, modern design and is fronted by rows of palm trees. But behind the attractive facade and beneath a clear blue South Pacific sky, all hell is breaking loose. An internecine conflict has broken out. On one side stands the vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, who claims to have blown the whistle on mismanagement and malpractice at the university; opposing him are pro-chancellor Winston Thompson and the Fijian government, who say Ahluwalia is guilty of both breaking USP hiring protocols and of unspecified immigration violations.”

Read on at The Independent or if you want to dodge the paywall, read here.

Republished with permission.

There was much excitement on the campuses of the University of the South Pacific when the latest Times Higher Education University Rankings were published, and USP was included on the prestigious international list for the very first time.

Understandably the vice-chancellor and the president wanted to trumpet the fact, but their suggestion that USP is now among the top 10 percent of universities worldwide is a little over the top.

There are more than 20,000 universities across the world, but the famous THE rankings include fewer than 1700 of them.

• READ MORE: Nauru president Aingimea accuses Fiji of being ‘divisive’ over USP funding
  
• LISTEN: ABC Pacific Beat
• Other USP rankings reports

And with USP rated in the band from 1000 to 1200, even the poorest statistician can probably work out that the university is not in the top 10 percent of the latest rankings, let alone in the world.

However Phil Baty, THE‘s chief knowledge officer, says an over generous statistical interpretation should not detract from USP’s achievement.

“Being ranked in the top 1200 in the world is still a really strong achievement. The Times Higher Education criteria are pretty demanding, we have 13 performance metrics, so in that sense, it’s a fantastic achievement. But we’re not really looking at all 20,000 institutions, we’re narrowing it down to a group of around 3000 or 4000 research universities,” Baty has told Pacific Beat.

However, as an international authority on university performance and strategy. Phil Baty is urging USP to be cautious with their future marketing strategies.

Set of challenges
“There was a bit of a set of challenges in Australia a few years ago actually, I think some Advertising Standards Authority said unless we are judging all 20,000, it doesn’t mean that you’re in the top 10 percent, because lots of different universities or higher education institutions have different missions, different goals.”

News of USP’s debut in the THE rankings comes at a time when the government of Tonga is actually planning to open the country’s own university, even though USP already has a campus in Nuku’alofa.

But Tongan student president Robin Napa’a believes there is room for both.

“Tonga Uni and USP can exist side by side….the option for higher education would be more available for the people here in Tonga to further their education and expand their knowledge,” Napa’a said.

And as the pandemic rolls on, the student leader says taking away the need to travel would be appealing for many Tongan students right now.

“USP has courses that are only offered on the main campus, so those students are required to go to Fiji to finish their degrees. But if Tonga University were to offer those courses here, then many students would prefer to stay with their families and study in an environment that is familiar to them.”

USP’s appearance on the THE list is all the more remarkable because it comes after months of controversy over the status of vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia and a governance crisis centred on allegations of serious mismanagement by the previous USP administration.

While his researchers were well aware of the problems at USP, Phil Baty says they were not a factor in assessing the institution’s ranking. However, he believes they could yet impact on its burgeoning reputation, particularly now that the university’s biggest donor Fiji has withdrawn its funding.

“We do run a reputation survey. So we survey 22,000 academics across the world to give their judgments on the university’s reputation for excellence in their specialist area.

Reputation metrics
“So it is fair to say USP hasn’t done very, very well on our reputation metrics, that may possibly be influenced by the turmoil.

“(But) when we look at the rankings, we really do just look hard and clean at the data. So as long as the students are still being taught, as long as the university is still producing research into the global journals, issues of governance don’t really creep into the immediate evaluations.”

And on that basis, Phil Baty says USP can make huge mileage out of its newfound recognition, but perhaps with a slightly more modest headline.

Duration: 6min 44sec
Broadcast: Wed 8 Sep 2021, 6:00am

This report is republished with ABC Pacific Beat permission.

A ranking of an institution of higher education by Times Higher Education (THE) is the ultimate recognition of excellence that an institution can aim for.

The University of the South Pacific (USP) has achieved two accolades by being ranked for 2022 and secondly being the only institution of higher education in the Pacific to gain this recognition.

All USP graduates of the 12 member country states can look back and appreciate the wisdom of the decision to establish the USP with the main campus at Laucala.

• READ MORE: Nauru president praises USP for its global ranking
• Accolades for USP
• Elizabeth Fong and USP – Libraries Aotearoa

Fiji as the host of the main campus continues to be the largest beneficiary in terms of graduates and financial income and has much to be grateful for.

I am an alumni and a grateful Fijian!

This kind of recognition takes a team and every team has a captain.

Vice-chancellor and president Professor Pal Ahluwalia is the captain that took the university across “the finishing line” that won us “gold”.

In this journey he has acknowledged the contribution of the many who played a part in this achievement that is about all of us Pasefikans.

Congratulatory messages have been received from alumni, current and former staff members, stakeholders and generous donors inclusive of messages from the member governments of Nauru, Samoa and Tuvalu to date.

The silence from the leadership of the country hosting the largest campus that also leads the Pacific Islands Forum is deafening to say the least!

Should we live in hope?

Nevertheless this will not detract from USP’s status as the most successful example of regionalism in the Blue Pacific as it continues to “Shape Pacific Futures”.

Long live USP!

Dr Elizabeth Fong is chief librarian and at the University of the South Pacific and president of the USP Staff Assocition. This letter was first published in The Fiji Times on 10 September 2021.

President Lionel Aingimea of Nauru has praised the University of the South Pacific for becoming ranked among the world’s top 10 percent of universities by The Times Higher Education rankings (THE).

This is the first time that the university has achieved this recognition in its 53-year history.

President Aingimea, who is outgoing chancellor and a law graduate and former teacher at the regional university, said it was a “remarkable achievement” and a “resounding endorsement of regionalism” in the Pacific.

• READ MORE: The USP saga
• NZ universities climb in Times Higher Education world rankings
• Full THE rankings

The ranking comes at a critical time for vice-chancellor and president Professor Pal Ahluwalia who has faced bitter opposition by the Fiji government for more than two years in what commentators regard as a “political vendetta”.

Professor Ahluwalia was deported by Fiji in February but had his contract renewed by the USP Council with him being based at a USP campus in Apia, Samoa, instead of Suva.

The THE ranking is seen as a vindication of his efforts to strengthen the university.

The 2022 rankings, released in the UK, look at five criteria: teaching, research, international outlook, citations and industry income.

President Aingimea said in a statement today Nauru had “been a proud founding member” of the university.

‘Longstanding commitment’
“At the time of USP’s establishment in 1968, Nauru stood tall recognising the importance and value of a regional university,” he said.

“Since that time, many Nauruans have, and continue to attend USP. Today, that long-standing commitment as one of the owners of USP has been rewarded in an unprecedented manner.

“USP has for the first time in its 53-year history been ranked by one the most prestigious ranking organisations of the world, The Times Higher Education Rankings (THE).

“USP has entered global rankings to now be part of an elite group that sees it ranked among the top 10 percent of universities in the world. This is truly a remarkable achievement when we take into account our developing regional context.

“Today is a day when the 12 member countries that own the USP can rejoice and see the resources and efforts that they have invested in this great Pacific institution being justly rewarded.

“This ranking is a resounding endorsement of regionalism.

“I have a deep personal association with USP, as a student witnessing first-hand the power of forging life-long relationships with colleagues from across the Pacific.

‘Part of the team’
“I have been a member of staff at USP, as a lecturer in law, and have been part of the team dedicated to delivering a quality education to our students.

“Finally, as president it was a privilege to serve as chancellor of USP. My term as chancellor was marked by the work we had to do to provide USP with the good governance it well and truly deserves.

“As an alumnus of USP, I stand tall with all the staff, students and alumni who have contributed to the success of USP through this ranking.

“It gives me enormous pleasure to congratulate Professor Pal Ahluwalia who has championed USP’s entry into the THE rankings along with his senior management team.

“This ranking speaks volumes about the high calibre of research and academic output that USP has produced. I express my deep gratitude to everyone for their commitment to achieve this recognition.

“Over the last two years, our staff and students have sacrificed a lot, and to each and every one of you, on this wonderful occasion, I once again offer my heartiest congratulations.”

In a USP profile, Professor Ahluwalia said the university had achieved recognition in two particular categories with the THE rankings — “international outlook” (top 400) and “industry income” (top 500).

Some people who were accused of corrupt practices at the University of the South Pacific have applied for Fiji government positions, claims opposition SODELPA member of Parliament Ro Filipe Tuisawau.

He was responding to Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s statement against the governing USP Council in Parliament last week.

“Some people who were accused of corrupt practices have applied for government positions to be part of the civil service,” Ro Filipe said.

• READ MORE: Fiji funding threat over Pacific-wide university draws ire in New Zealand
• Background to the USP saga

He said Sayed-Khaiyum was fond of bringing up allegations against expatriate USP vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia but failed to mention allegations against the previous Fiji vice-chancellor [Professor Rajesh Chandra].

He said victims of the USP saga were students and staff members who mostly comprised Fijians.

He said there were allegations of corrupt practices before Professor Ahluwalia’s term that should be investigated and the Attorney-Genefral only told “one side of the story”.

“Fiji should be paying more (in grant) because there are more Fijian students.”

Fiji’s USP stance ‘vindictive’

Fiji Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry described the Fiji government’s decision not to release its annual grant to USP unless an independent inquiry was carried out on allegations against Professor Ahluwalia as vindictive.

“One does not expect this degree of immaturity and pettiness from a high-ranking government minister,” Chaudhry said.

“The minister should know that USP will go on regardless of such petty behaviour from him, it is Fiji that will suffer.

“His antics are giving Fiji a bad name and putting regional cooperation at risk.

“We have the PM making an upbeat statement in Parliament talking of regional solidarity and building trust and confidence in our relationship as a forum family’ while the Economy Minister is going all out to wreck this regional family.”

He questioned whether, in line with his new policy on USP, the minister would also suspend payments under the Toppers and TELS scheme to Fiji’s USP students.

“I also wonder what our two big regional donors [Australia and New Zealand] and forum partners think about such petty behaviour.

Divert budgetary support to USP
“Maybe they can consider diverting some of the budgetary support money they donate to the Fijian government, to the USP to make up for the default in Fiji’s annual grant payments.”

Questions sent to Sayed- Khaiyum last week regarding Chaudhry’s statements remained unanswered.

While the Australian consulate has chosen to remain silent on the issue, New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said its government respected the collective decision of the USP governing Council to reappoint Prof Ahluwalia.

New Zealand would continue to work with all stakeholders to find a solution that was in the best interests of students.

“New Zealand remains concerned by the ongoing management and governance challenges at the University of the South Pacific (USP),” a statement from the ministry said.

Felix Chaudhary and Luke Rawalai are Fiji Times reporters. Republished with permission.

The New Zealand government says it remains concerned by the ongoing management and governance challenges at the Fiji-based regional University of the South Pacific.

This week the Fiji government announced it would not pay its multi-million grant to the university while the current vice-chancellor Pal Ahluwalia remained at his post.

It has called for another investigation after an earlier one revealed significant abuses by former vice-chancellor Rajesh Chandra, who is believed to have close links with the Fiji government.

• READ MORE: Background to the USP saga

The Fiji government deported Professor Ahluwalia and his wife in February, after accusing them of immigration breaches.

But the governing USP Council, headed by Nauru President Lionel Aingamea, renewed his contract, and the vice-chancellor is to work out of the Samoa campus instead of Suva.

New Zealand said it respected the collective decision of the council and said it would continue to work with all stakeholders to find a solution that was in the best interests of students.

New Zealand and Australia give significant financial backing to the university which is owned by 12 Pacific Island states.

USP faces a struggle
Long time USP academic Professor Vijay Naidu said that while Fiji paid the most in grant money, it was also the main beneficiary of the institution.

He said that without the Fiji funding the university would struggle.

“The university will survive until the end of this year, but looking beyond that they will obviously be looking to find other sources of funding,” he said.

“And given the fact that the GDPs of Pacific Island countries and the per capita income of the region is relatively low this would be a difficult challenge.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The challenges experienced by Tongan students having to study overseas will soon be over after the government has announced plans for the establishment of the kingdom’s first national university.

The news has been hailed as a solution to the financial, social and mental stresses Tonga’s international students have faced.

The kingdom’s Parliament is expected to process a bill which set out the details of the university later this week. The public had until yesterday to make submissions on the Tonga University Bill 2021.

The university is expected to unite various institutions, including the Tonga Institute of Education, Tonga Institute of Higher Education, Tonga Institute of Science and Technology, Tonga Maritime Polytech Institute, Queen Salote Institute of Nursing and Allied Health, as well as the Tonga Police College.

It will offer academic, technical and vocational programmes and qualifications from certificate to post-doctorate level.

Former Tongan MP and government teacher Lepolo Taunisila said the proposal had been in the pipeline for a while and involved previous governments and education ministers such as the late Dr Hu’akavameiliku and Dr ‘Ana Taufe’ulungaki.

It had been “absolutely long overdue”, Taunisila said.

‘Frustrating challenges’
A former student at the University of the South Pacific (USP), Fīnau Leone, said the move could help resolve the problems he and other Tongan students had encountered in the past.

Leone said he faced “frustrating challenges” studying in Fiji.

He said his family struggled to pay for his studies because he did not have a scholarship.

His parents could sometimes only afford to pay for his school fees and not for his shopping and living costs.

“I have no choice but to use all that money to pay for my school fees and begged for food from other Tongan students at USP and also asked them for a space to sleep in their apartment.

“Leaving home for the first time to stay with different people from various ethnicities were challenging, especially as I was just finishing from high school,” he said.

Leone said he still remembers an incident in which one of his best Tongan friends at USP was killed in Fiji while they were on a night out.

Tonga is one of 12 Pacific Island countries which fund USP.

Two private universities currently operate in the kingdom – ‘Atenisi University and Christ’s University in Pacific.

This article by Kaniva Tonga editor Kalino Lātū was first published by Te Waha Nui and is republished here as part of our collaboration with Kaniva Tonga.

The University of the South Pacific (USP) has been ranked 11th for “crisis management” by the World Universities with Real Impact (WURI) 2021 global ranking.

The university’s world standing was announced in a virtual conference by professor emeritus of Seoul National University and founding director of the WURI ranking, Moon Hwy Chang.

WURI is the latest university ranking system established in 2020. It was developed by the Organising Committee of the Second Conference of the Hanseatic League of Universities.

WURI was created to evaluate the innovative programmes of universities and to measure the performance of universities in creating real value to society and providing opportunities for the future in the following fields:

• Industrial applications rather than the traditional ways of counting research papers and lecture-type teaching;
• Value-creating startups and entrepreneurship as opposed to the common practice of measuring the number of jobs filled;
• Social responsibility, ethics, and integrity compared to those that only consider the knowledge and skills required for material success;
• Student mobility and openness for exchange and collaboration between schools and across national borders, which are more encompassing than an independent yet closed system; and
• Crisis managementof dealing with external shocks such as the covid-19 pandemic and technological breakthroughs (e.g. artificial intelligence) to thrive rather than just to survive.

The USP entered in the category of “crisis management” and provided the details of how it had responded to covid-19 in 2020. Its submission, titled Continuity of Education amidst COVID-19 Pandemic was submitted in December 2020.

WURI assessed USP on how it dealt with external shocks such as the covid-19 pandemic and technological breakthroughs (e.g. artificial intelligence) “to thrive rather than just to survive”.

USP’s acting vice-chancellor and president, Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Pāunga, said USP was extremely pleased and proud to be included among the best universities in the world in ensuring the continuity of learning and teaching in the current covid-19 pandemic.

“This worldwide recognition is a great and timely gift, received during one of the most challenging periods in the university’s history. This is not just the university’s achievement but a proud moment for the entire region,” he said.

Indonesian police have forcefully dispersed a number of West Papuan protests around the region.

The protesters were yesterday calling for the release of pro-independence activist Victor Yeimo who was taken into police custody more than two weeks ago.

They were also calling for the release of other Papuan political prisoners, and rejecting Jakarta’s plans for special autonomy in Papua.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the arrest of Victor Yeimo and the resistance
• Wenda condemns Indonesia’s UN genocide vote for Papua ‘hypocrisy’

Reports from the capital of West Papua province, Manokwari, indicate that as many as 130 protesters were arrested.

Dozens of armed police converged on the mobilisations by Papuan students and civil society members to disperse their attempts to hold protests on several occasions around Manokwari.

Reports from Papua region say authorities ensured those being arrested underwent covid-19 rapid anti-gen testing before being processed by police.

Several deaths linked to the coronavirus have been reported in the province over the last few days.

Protests in Sorong, Jayapura
Protests were also held in the cities of Sorong and Jayapura, the latter of which has entered a fourth week of internet outage.

Yeimo, the foreign spokesman for the West Papua National Committee, had been on a police wanted list for treason suspects related to his alleged role in the widespread “Papua Rising” anti-racism protests in August and September 2019.

Those protests in a number of cities and towns in the region followed highly publicised racist attacks on Papuan students in Java.

They were met with a crackdown by Indonesian security forces, and interference by militia groups, and spiralled into unrest which caused dozens of deaths.

Protesters in today’s mobilisations in Manokwari were also demonstrating against the Indonesian government’s recent decision to brand the West Papuan National Liberation Army as terrorists.

Guerilla fighters with the Liberation Army, which is a small and fractured force, have been locked in an ongoing armed conflict with Indonesian military forces in the rugged central highlands of West Papua for months.

The conflict escalated in recent weeks after the Papuan force killed an Indonesian intelligence chief and – according to authorities – two teachers last month.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Amid uncertainty and a court battle over the University of Goroka’s vice-chancellor seat, Higher Education Minister Wesley Raminai surprised staff and students by leading the university’s interim council members onto the campus to be “sworn in”.

The usually quiet study-friendly Humilaveka campus atmosphere was disrupted by a chanting group of Huli wigmen until the delegation arrived about noon, reports The National.

The majority of staff and students, gripped by confusion, were not present to provide a traditional university reception.

• READ MORE: Row over University of Goroka post

Only a handful of senior staff members received the delegation.

Raminai led them to the Mark Solon Auditorium board room.

The members were sworn in by Goroka District Court Senior Magistrate Josephine Nindue.

They were Joe Wemin (chairman), Dr Goru Hane Nou, Takale Tuna, Johnson Kent, Nelson Auwo, Rose Koyama, John Sari, Steven Nujuitu, Robin Guebianbazzynu, Wayne Joseph and Lavert Ganimo.

Raminai congratulated the interim council members, describing the council as balanced with members from all regions of Papua New Guinea.

Police serve court order
The new council members were then ushered out of the campus to a luncheon when police served a National Court order on Raminai, Wemin and acting vice-chancellor Dr Teng Waninga.

The order dismissed a motion Dr Waninga had filed in court to restrain chancellor Dr Joseph Sukwianomb and vice-chancellor Professor Musawe Sinebare and their agents from interfering with Waninga’s management of the unversity.

Dr Sukwianomb is a former vice-chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea and a onetime manager of the Prime Minister’s Department.

Lawyers Hebert Wally and Tony Waisi for Sukwianomb and Sinebare advised that the order had weakened Dr Waninga and Wemin’s position at the university with any activity following the service being deemed legally “in contempt”.

Late last month, the Chief Justice, Sir Gibbs Salika, had ordered the minister not to interfere with the university leadership.

The service of the document was received and acknowledged by Raminai, Wemin and Dr Waninga through their lawyers.

However, Raminai then allowed Wemin to chair his first council meeting as “chancellor”.

Wemin appointed as the disputed officers Dr Waninga as vice-chancellor, Dr Steven Potek (pro-vice chancellor policy and planning), Dr Mathew Landu (pro-vice chancellor academic, research and innovation), Naomi Kouse (registrar) and Jim Mek (bursar).

The appointments were for a short term of six months.

Republished with permission from The National.

Papua New Guinea’s Communications Minister, Timothy Masiu, recently told a news conference to mark World Press Freedom Day that the state of journalism and broadcasting in the country has seen a general decline.

He was critical of the quality and the content of the media in general.  The former NBC journalist and broadcaster had reported on Bougainville during the decade-long crisis. He had served with former NBC head and senior journalist Joseph Ealedona.

I agreed with him. But I couldn’t let the statement go without challenge.  While many have been critical of the state of “investigative” journalism in the country and the apparent lack of impact the media has had on the corruption and abuse, there has been very little investment in Papua New Guinea’s journalism schools over 25 years.

• READ MORE: Uni Tavur and media education at UPNG
• Other Scott Waide articles

The University of Papua New Guinea’s journalism programme is a shadow of its former self. The once vibrant newsroom centered department of the 1980s and 1990s no longer functions as it did.

Back then, the university produced journalists who were a force to be reckoned with. They shaped the politics, rubbed shoulders with the political and business heavies and were were unafraid to be openly critical of the government abuses.

At Divine Word University, the people focused approach to journalism and development shaped how rural communities were given a voice.

The deported vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific has told the Samoa Observer that his future remains in limbo after he was expelled from Fiji, the 12-nation regional university’s headquarters.

Speaking to the Observer from Nauru, Professor Pal Ahluwalia said the decision about where to serve out his tenure remains out of his hands.

The remarks come the day after Samoa formally extended Professor Ahluwalia the offer of a safe haven.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the USP saga

The professor says he had received offers from both Samoa and Vanuatu to offer him a safe haven, but that the decision about where he ends up will be up to the university.

Professor Ahluwalia has been in Nauru for two months now at the invitation of President of Lionel Aingimea to observe first-hand the challenges that face countries in Micronesia and the South Pacific and see what can be done to improve them.

“I’m waiting for the University Council to decide about where I go next and I know your prime minister and the prime minister of Vanuatu have both said that they would like me to operate from either of those two countries,” said Professor Ahluwalia.

“My view is [I will go] to wherever the council wants me to go.”

Confident over Samoa
The caretaker Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Dr Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, is confident the vice-chancellor will choose to pick Samoa

Speaking for the first time following the election during his Taimi ma le Palemia programme last Monday, Tuilaepa confirmed Samoa is one of only two countries that have extended an invitation to host Professor Ahluwalia.

“Our branch of the regional university was more focused on agricultural courses, but with the recent change, it is now a general campus,” he said.

“This means any course can be taught there and that’s why we offered to host the vice-chancellor; similar to when he lived in Fiji while also directing the university here and in Vanuatu.

“This is why he can also live here during his tenure while he oversees the campuses in Fiji and Vanuatu. Only two nations offered – Vanuatu and Samoa.

“And we do feel that the [vice-chancellor] would prefer to be in Samoa; so we are awaiting a decision as there is also Australia and New Zealand involved. But whatever it may be, I really believe that he will come here.”

Professor Ahluwalia drew the ire of university and national authorities for whistleblowing a raft of misspending and irregular bonuses among the university leadership.

Leaked audit report
Copies of his audit report, and a follow-up report that backed up his findings by forensic accountants BDO Auckland were widely leaked and exposed widespread corruption in the school.

But when he began investigating the situation, he never imagined it would lead to his overnight expulsion, he said.

“Obviously, I did an audit when I first got to the USP in 2019 and that audit revealed irregularities and financial mismanagement and human resource breaches of policy,” he said.

“I thought the only logical thing for me to do was report it to my council, which I did and of course some members of my management who were incriminated in it don’t share my values or my passion for higher education in the Pacific.

“It’s a clash of values and integrity and ethics. I can only speak about myself, others have to really answer those questions for themselves.”

Professor Ahluwalia was deported from Fiji, the site of the university’s main campus, without warning in February following a late night raid and he was deportated to Australia the following day.

In the meantime, Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Paunga, is acting vice-chancellor and president.

University clarification
Last week, USP’s chancellor, President Aingimea, clarified that Professor Ahluwalia was still the head of the university despite his abrupt removal from the main campus.

Speaking to The Fiji Times, the regional university chancellor said there was no question that Professor Ahluwalia was still the vice-chancellor.

“That was a question that was put to a subcommittee, the subcommittee has put it back to the council with some recommendations – as far as I am personally concerned, he is still the VC of the USP,” he said.

“As far as I am concerned there are other campuses around the region, USP is a regional institution and, therefore, the VC can, as far as I am concerned, operate out of Samoa, Vanuatu or Nauru or any other country for that matter.”

The Samoan government has been clear on its intentions to have Professor Ahluwalia work from Samoa from the start and speaking to the Samoa Observer soon after his deportation in February, the vice-chancellor said he would be delighted to do so.

The caretaker Prime Minister said such scandals were crucial in shaping the future of the university as well as a lesson for the next host country for the university head.

This article was first published in the Samoa Observer.

Deported Canadian academic Professor Pal Ahluwalia is still vice-chancellor and president of the University of the South Pacific, says chancellor Lionel Aingimea.

Professor Ahluwalia and his wife, nursing lecturer Sandra Price, were forced to leave Fiji in early February after the Fiji government claimed the couple had breached provisions in their work permits.

Aingimea, who is also Nauru’s President, said once issues relating to the academic’s departure were cleared at the council level, Professor Ahluwalia would be allowed to operate out of any USP member country, except Fiji.

• READ MORE: More reports on the USP saga

Aingimea’s comments comes amid a council meeting this week to discuss a report which had highlighted governance issues at the regional institution.

The report was compiled in 2019 by forensic accountant BDO Auckland following allegations by Professor Ahluwalia of “serious mismanagement and abuse of office” at the USP.

The fallout between the university’s governing body, the USP Council, and the head office host nation, Fiji, came to the fore following the deportation of Ahluwalia.

Aingimea had condemned the deportation.

USP not informed
He said the USP Council, Professor Ahluwalia’s employer, was not informed of his deportation by the Fijian authorities.

The council had not revoked Professor Ahluwalia’s contract, Aingimea said.

He told the Fiji Times newspaper last week that he had received a lot of letters from USP students and staff expressing their disappointment that issues remained unresolved.

The question of Professor Ahluwalia’s role was put to a subcommittee, Aingimea said, and the subcommittee had returned it to the council meeting this week with some recommendations.

“As far as I am personally concerned, he [Ahluwalia] is still the VC of the USP,” he said.

On Ahluwalia not being able to return to Fiji, Aingimea said he could operate from any member country.

“As far as I am concerned there are other campuses around the region, USP is a regional institution and, therefore, the VC can, as far as I am concerned, operate out of Samoa, Vanuatu or Nauru or any other country for that matter.”

Ahluwalia and his wife were taken from their Suva home late at night on February 3 and driven to Nadi International Airport to be put on a flight to Australia.

According to the Fiji government, Alhuwalia and Sandra Price had continuously breached Section 13 of the Immigration Act which led to their deportation.

The couple have denied the claims.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Year 2020 was the annus horribilis worldwide due to the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Recently the Fiji government expelled University of the South Pacific vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia after his claims in 2020 of financial mismanagement of the university by the former administration, close to the government.

It is still beyond belief that the government should interfere in the matters of an independent academic institution owned by 12 Pacific nations – not just the host country Fiji – and take such draconian and unjustified action against the vice-chancellor.

In New Zealand, across the road at the University of Auckland the management had its fair share of criticism for the purchase of a new house for vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater at an exorbitant amount, prompting the auditor-general to write that Auckland University broke own rule in purchase of $5 million house.

• LISTEN TO Radio 531pi: The Pacific Media Centre controversy
• Future of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre under spotlight following director’s departure – Teuila Fuatai
• The Pacific Media Centre must break free to survive – Gavin Ellis
• Who is killing off top Pacific journalism – and why?
• Concerns grows over PMC after shock office ‘closure’ and no director
• Pacific reaction to ‘end of an era’
• Outcry over signs of upheaval at PMC – Dateline Pacific
• Outcry over signs of upheaval at Pacific Media Centre – APR
• LISTEN to RNZ Dateline Pacific

Here, at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), the investigation into allegations of bullying and sexual harassment started in July 2020 and its subsequent Davenport independent review report legitimately highlighted many shortcomings that the first university of the new millennium in 2000 has failed to address in a timely fashion.

It is clear that the main lesson to be learned was “to be kind” to others, as often heard throughout the covid-19 pandemic by Prime Minister Jacinda Arden. The reply from AUT’s vice-chancellor Derek McCormack was even more powerful and along the lines of promising to do better.

We all hope that the issues will be dealt with as swiftly and as diplomatically as possible in order to reinstate the reputation of our youngest university in the Pacific.

Those three events are serious setbacks to the academic realm in our part of the world and whether their effects have been felt locally or globally, they have generated seriously unwanted publicity.

AUT and an on-going saga: the PMC future
Following the Davenport recommendations, a seminar was organised by the Pacific Media Centre about future directions – and to say their goodbyes to Professor David Robie, director of the PMC for 13 years, who retired in December.

A retired University of the South Pacific development studies emeritus professor, Dr Crosbie Walsh, penned a tribute to David, saying he “has lived in the Pacific, been involved in Pacific human rights and media freedom issues, or taught journalism to Pacific Islanders and others for 40 years. He will be a hard man to replace”.

But that tribute didn’t dispel apprehensions about lack of a succession plan in the School of Communication Studies and the continued questions over the future of PMC more than three months later.

A lot has been commented about the issue of the suddenly empty PMC office (Outcry over signs of upheaval at Pacific Media Centre). Comments and questions still pour in on social media from worried students, sympathisers, television presenters, and former colleagues of the PMC about the whereabouts of this vital repository of knowledge, their new “office” and the future of the PMC team.

Here are sample quotes from two former students:

John Pulu (Tagata Pasifika anchor, TV1): “I just want to say mālō ‘aupito/thank you to Professor David, Del and team for the last 13 years of service at the Pacific Media Centre, AUT University. I hope the great legacy of PMC will be continued from here to help the next lot of broadcasters, journalists and academics who will cover or have interest in the Pacific region.”

Matt Scott (a reporter at Newsroom, TV3): “David Robie and the PMC provided me some of my first opportunities to step into the role of a journalist. Without the PMC, I feel that there will be a void not just at AUT but in journalism as a whole in this part of the world. The centre provides a space and platform for journalists covering an under-reported region that is in dire need of people fighting for truth, fairness and transparency. Removing the centre is a big step backwards.”

We have also seen support and anger at the lack of transparency regarding the future of the centre on Facebook:

Is AUT as a platform for Pacific news broadcasts about to lose its audience?
An in-depth article from former New Zealand Herald editor-in-chief Gavin Ellis has magnified many of the issues regarding the relationship that the PMC has with the Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies (DCT), or its School of Communication Studies (SCS).

One of the most salient issues has been the autonomous status of the PMC. Quoting the Australia Asia Pacific Media Initiative (AAPMI) which described the PMC as “the jewel in AUT’s crown”, it should enjoy its own independence, a condition that AUT might not want to ignore if they want to avoid the loss of the centre.

Or maybe the future of PMC should actually be to break away to survive, as Ellis advocates.

Similarly, a newly published article from Spinoff by Teuila Fuatai recounts the genesis of the issue from March 2020 to post Professor Robie’s retirement in December, highlighting the lack of transparency in this matter and the long awaited appointment of a new director.

For my part and based on the students’ outpouring of support, the worrying issues are twofold: First, is the “partnership” issue raised in an answer by Dr Rosser Johnson, head of the SCS, who presented a 100 percent commitment and the exponential work that would now be able to be accomplished in the new era of the partnership PMC-SCS.

What is missing is the idea of continuity that is being engulfed in what Professor Robie quotes as “regime change” with a determined effort to sideline those who had contributed so much to the development of the centre over the past 13 years.

In his view, this means “no continuity, no institutional memory or history and zero opportunities for the students”.

Second, from the students’ perspective: We have witnessed across New Zealand universities carrying out cost-cutting exercises triggered by the pandemic due to the lack of revenue usually brought in by the international students. However, it is not without legitimate suspicion that PMC might be one of those targets of this financial fix.

It is also the question posed by students who are at the centre of this issue: what about developing our Pacific people in media and journalism? Under representation of Pacific people (and Māori for that matter) who are experts in their communities in media spaces is well documented.

What the PMC has created is a pool of students and contributors who have an invaluable relationship to and inside knowledge of the geopolitical issues surrounding the Pacific basin and the Asian region.

This pool of “grassroots” contributors will certainly add a plus value to the overarching entity, be it a university or an independent institution, in terms of reporting facts.

Ena Manuireva, born in Mangareva (Gambier islands) in Ma’ohi Nui (French Polynesia), is a language revitalisation researcher at Auckland University of Technology and is currently completing his doctorate on the Mangarevan language. He is also a campaigner for nuclear reparations justice from France over the 193 tests staged in Polynesia over three decades.

There are signs Fiji’s deportation of the University of the South Pacific (USP) vice-chancellor was engineered to avoid his contract being given better security.

Professor Pal Ahluwalia told RNZ Dateline Pacific that on Wednesday last week the USP chancellor, Nauru President Lionel Aingimea, had alerted the university’s governing body, the USP Council, to veiled threats in Fiji news media.

Professor Ahluwalia said this resulted in Aingimea advising council members, including Fijian representatives, that in their next meeting they would amend the vice-chancellor’s contract to afford better security.

However, the vice-chancellor said his work permit was rescinded on the same day (Wednesday) and he was deported on Thursday before the council could meet on Friday, following the notice in the media.

“What had appeared in the Fiji Sun in the Whispers column to say that ‘Watch this space: A school where big students study, its leader will be removed from the country.’ So he took the step to say to council we need to amend the vice-chancellor’s contract.”

An ‘illegal act’ by Fiji
Professor Ahluwalia said the way in which his contract was frustrated was an illegal act.

The USP is a regional institution, said Professor Ahluwalia, owned by 12 Pacific countries and “the decisions of the University Council, which has representatives from all the countries, needs to be respected” which is inconsistent with the way Fiji acted in his arrest and deportation, he added.

The council said in a statement that it was not consulted.

Professor Ahluwalia said he had received a lot of support from the entire region and that he would welcome any action from the USP Council that would allow the university to move forward, including a rumoured move of headquarters to another country.

“I believe I was selected to do the job and it’s obvious that the community – staff and students – strongly endorse what I am doing. So it’s my belief that if I need to move to Samoa to run this university, we’ll make it work,” he said.

“I will abide by whatever decision the University Council makes.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The University of PNG has clarified that Papua New Guinea’s higher education loan programme (Help) is administered by a government department and not the university.

Vice-chancellor Professor Frank Griffin said the Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (DHERST) looked after the loan programme.

He said UPNG had no control over it.

• READ MORE: ‘Don’t turn away any student,’ Marape tells PNG schools

Professor Griffin was responding to queries on why the university was telling students to pay the compulsory fee of K2939 (NZ$1160) to register before applying for the loan.

Parents and students were hoping to pay the fee from the Help loan.

But Professor Griffin said DHERST had informed UPNG that a student had to register first at the university before applying for a Help loan.

He said registration was based on paying the compulsory fee – something UPNG had no control over.

‘Leave no one behind’
“Last year, we were advised by the government to leave no one behind,” Professor Griffin said.

“So we went ahead and registered all students.

“But this year, the policy was changed by the department (DHERST).

“Last year, we did not get all of the Help funding.

“It’s a programme done by DHERST so who they give the money or decide to give the money to is a question you have to ask the department.”

Asia Pacific Report republishes The National articles with permission.

When the University of the South Pacific’s vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, was hauled out of his Suva, Fiji, home this week and deported, it had nothing to do with his views on education or tertiary management.

With his wife and nursing lecturer Sandy Price they were driven across curfew-locked down Fiji to be put on a plane to Australia.

It was not an action designed to make USP a better place, or to improve life for Fiji’s young people.

• READ MORE: ‘Most surreal experience of our lives’: Leading professor describes being deported from Fiji
• A bruising 24 hours in the Pacific – three key questions about regionalism
• Forum calls for ‘due process’ over USP, inquiry into Ahluwalia deportation
• Case of ‘beating up the whistleblower,’ says deported USP chief
• USP staff, students condemn Fiji ‘Gestapo’ tactics, demand Ahluwalia’s return – Wansolwara
• Politicians, educators, advocates blast Fiji’s ‘barbaric’ expulsion of USP head
• Deported Pacific university VC claims no wrongdoing
• More USP saga reports

It was bitterly personal.

“You have nailed it,” Professor Ahluwalia told Pacific Newsroom. “It is precisely a case of ‘let’s get rid of this man because he exposed too much corruption’.”

Professor Ahluwalia and Price were seized late last Wednesday and deported on Thursday morning to Brisbane where, due to covid-19, they are now in managed isolation until February 18.

He is adamant that he remains vice-chancellor of the 12-nation regional USP and will keep managing the university.

Money was missing
Just over two years ago Professor Ahluwalia took over USP from vice-chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra. He discovered much was wrong in the accounting department, and money was missing. A lot of money.

Professor Ahluwalia submitted a report to the USP Council and, in an abbreviated form, this led to the hiring of Auckland accountancy consultants BDO. When their damning report reached the university council, it was pretty much suppressed. Key details were kept from the public.

The BDO report was then leaked – not by Professor Ahluwalia or any USP staff – to Pacific Newsroom, prompting uproar.

As BDO linked corruption and missing millions efforts were begun to get Professor Ahluwalia fired.

These were mostly led by USP’s pro-chancellor, Winston Thompson. A Fijian, BDO’s report made it clear Thompson was acting for FijiFirst; not USP or its students.

Professor Ahluwalia said that until talking with Pacific Newsroom, he had not talked publicly about these connections. He was now because Pacific Newsroom had become a key influence in the debate in Fiji.

Getting rid of Professor Ahluwalia was part of that: “It’s as personal as that and Winston Thompson was Fiji’s ambassador to the United States, he is a diplomat and he has presided over several interesting, very interesting, downfalls of public institutions…”

‘The intimacies of politics’
Surely, it was put to Professor Ahluwalia, USP was bigger than just a couple of people. But that, he replied, was what it amounted to.

“It is really that, the intimacies of politics… the way these networks work, after all this is a very small country.”

Fiji refuses to accept BDO evidence, claiming their own Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) had found no corruption.

BDO had pointed clearly to corruption and both Professor Ahluwalia and Price say they were close to getting to the bottom of the operation behind it.

“The best evidence I can provide for all of this at the moment,” Professor Ahluwalia said, “is that I am close, but don’t have evidence yet.

“What I would say as evidence is that 2019 and 2020 we had to put a number of financial restrictions in place, but the fact that I returned, in 2020, a $28.3 million surplus on a university that did not receive grants from Fiji and Australia. That tells me how much they were leaching out of the system.”

Was it a basic kind of fraud, people helping themselves to cash: “That’s what it seems to me. The bit I cannot figure out is that these accounts are audited by auditors and how were they doing it?”

People complicit at USP
There were, Price suggested, a lot of people in USP that were complicit.

This week, as the Pacific Forum met in Zoom session to elect a new secretary-general, the Fiji government moved against Professor Ahluwalia and Price. He found it interesting that this was the week.

“There was a special council meeting (a Friday week ago) and at that meeting the President of Nauru (Lionel Aingimea, the current USP chancellor) raised my contract as an issue.”

He wanted it placed on the agenda because he was concerned about it. Both Thompson and the council’s Fiji representative, Mahmood Khan, expressed concern at having it on the agenda, saying there was no supporting paper to explain its presence.

They said they needed to know what the issue was.

“And Lionel gave them a hint, he said it’s about visa issues and then he said, well we will send a paper.”

It was drafted and it noted that the Fiji Sun, a pro-Bainimarama newspaper, had reported in a gossip section that someone from “a big school for big students” could be sacked.

‘Draconian barbaric act’
Professor Ahluwalia said as soon as that appeared, they knew they had to act: “On Wednesday they did this draconian barbaric act, trampling over our human rights.”

As to the Pacific Islands Forum Summit: “I wouldn’t put anything in Fiji as just a coincidence. They probably knew all the leaders were busy.

For himself, and the USP Council, Professor Ahluwalia is still the vice-chancellor. His contract remained valid and he had done nothing wrong: “I suppose it’s a wrongful dismissal which is what I am arguing… the employer still has a duty of responsibility even if the government chooses to deport you on fabricated charges.”

Given all the stresses, it would be understandable that Professor Ahluwalia and Price might want to cut their losses, but that is not so: “I was hired to lead USP and take it forward, I think it has a lot of potential, I don’t think it has to be just beholden to Fiji and one of the best things that would happen to the university is for the vice chancellor to operate from outside of Fiji and actually really lift the education of the rest of the region and give the region more attention while paying attention to Fiji as well.

“Covid has taught us that the university can be run from its other campuses. After all, the USP campuses are run from Laucala so the converse is absolutely possible,” he said.

“I have nothing against the people of Fiji and my students and staff in Fiji are the reason I have so much support so I want to make sure they are supported.”

He could live in another USP member country: Samoa is already waving the welcome mat.
The university would survive.

Damage done to Fiji
“I think the damage is not being done to USP, the damage is to the Fiji government because of their actions in violating our human rights.”

This kind of passionate battle augurs well for USP: “Its international reputation is enhanced, that there are people in it with ethical people trying to clean it up.”

Ethics, integrity and good governance mattered.

“My message to the students is very clear. Come to USP, a great regional institution, committed staff, we are there, it remains the premier regional institution and when this vice-chancellor is back he will continue on the march to make sure USP becomes an even better institution and be ready as a university for the next 50 years.”

Michael Field, the New Zealand author and an independent journalist, has also been deported from Fiji on several occasions under different prime ministers and remains persona non grata. This article is republished from The Pacific Newsroom with permission.

Staff, students and alumni of the University of the South Pacific have called on the Fiji government to immediately reinstate the work permit for vice-chancellor and president Professor Pal Ahluwalia, who was deported today along with his wife, Sandra Price.

The USP community also called on the government to issue a formal apology to Professor Ahluwalia, an Australian, for the violation of human rights.

They expressed grave concern over the actions of police and immigration officials who removed the couple from the vice-chancellor’s residence on Laucala campus late last night.

• READ MORE: Politicians, educators, advocates blast Fiji’s ‘barbaric’ expulsion of USP head
• Deported Pacific university VC claims no wrongdoing
• More USP saga reports

In a petition issued this afternoon, the group said they were deeply concerned at the disrepute brought to the 12-nation regional university by the actions of the Fiji government in this morning’s deportation.

USP staff associations also condemned the manner in which the couple were removed from their residence and swiftly transported to Nadi International Airport for the 10.30am flight to Brisbane, Australia.

“The manner in which the VCP and his wife were removed is a violation of human rights and due process,” read a joint statement by the USP Staff Union (USPSU) and the Association of USP Staff (AUSPS).

“Given the seriousness of the decision, we demand the Fiji government to provide the justification for this Gestapo tactic.”

Vice-chancellor deemed ‘public risk’
“According to media reports, the VCP was deemed a ‘public risk’ and we as taxpayers, voters and owners of the university demand an explanation on how Professor Pal is a ‘public risk’.

“Given the impact on the university’s reputation and staff morale, we reiterate our support for the USP Council to proceed with its scheduled meeting to fully discuss this matter and already agreed to agenda items, to arrive at regionally acceptable solutions.”

It is understood police and immigration officers were acting on directives outlined in a letter, allegedly signed by Acting Director for Immigration Amelia Komaisavai.

The document with the Fijian Immigration Department letterhead dated 3 February 2021 with attention to Professor Ahluwalia, noted that the Minister for Immigration had declared the couple prohibited immigrants under the Immigration Act 2003, Section 13 (2) (g) and ordered that they leave Fiji with immediate effect.

USP management are also calling on staff and students to remain calm throughout the situation for the safety and wellbeing of the university community.

“Until the [USP] Council at a council meeting directs otherwise, the senior management team will take on the role jointly of undertaking the vice-chancellor’s duties,” a statement from management read.

“The senior management team has notified the council leadership and are waiting for direction. The safety and wellbeing of our staff and students and the continuation of university operations remain our priority.”

Several community leaders and politicians have come out strong against the surprising tactic.

The USP Council, the university’s highest decision-making body, is expected to meet tomorrow.

Asia Pacific Report collaborates with Wansolwara, the USP journalism newspaper and website.

Attempts to remove the University of the South Pacific pro-chancellor and one of its council’s committee chairperson – both of Fiji – were thwarted yesterday when the USP Council special meeting ran out of time.

Fiji’s five-member delegation led by its Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum were accused of stalling the deliberation of the council when it met via zoom.

Council interim chair Lionel Aingmea, who is also President of Nauru, adjourned the meeting at 4.30pm Fiji time as a number of council members had exited the zoom platform.

• READ MORE: ‘I’m staying with USP’, says Thompson
• Other USP saga reports

A council member who spoke to Islands Business on the condition of anonymity says Fiji’s AG made several attempts to introduce motions that were not on the meeting agenda.

This included a motion for the USP Council to reopen investigations into its Vice-Chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia.

He also proposed to table a letter, the content of which he did not disclose.

After much opposition from several council members, some of whom questioned the non-adherence to meeting protocol or convention, both Fiji’s motions were put to the vote and defeated.

Lunch break needed a vote
Even the decision to adjourn the meeting for lunch had to be voted upon.

The only successful motion passed by the council yesterday was the vote to adopt the agenda that President Aingmea had submitted (and not the one Fiji proposed), and the election of Professor Pat Walsh, representative of the New Zealand government to the USP Council, as the new deputy chair.

He replaces Tongan accountant Aloma Johansson, whom Fiji had nominated to have her term renewed.

The abrupt adjournment of today’s meeting meant that controversial Fiji government reps in the council of Winston Thompson and Mahmood Khan would stay.

The next meeting is now scheduled for mid-November.

Samisoni Pareti is editor of the regional news magazine Islands Business.

The University of the South Pacific Council has terminated the investigation into allegations of material misconduct against USP vice-chancellor and president Professor Pal Ahluwalia.

A media release from the university stated the council had considered the decision by the special executive committee, viewed all the evidence against the vice-chancellor, and came to a clear consensus that there was no indication of material misconduct.

USP vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia said he was happy that the USP Council had cleared all allegations against him.

READ MORE: Asia Pacific Report on the USP leadership controversy

Professor Ahluwalia thanked the council, especially the special executive committee, for their commitment to seek truth and justice.

The USP vice-chancellor said he was deeply humbled by the support that had been bestowed upon him and his wife and they were committed to serving the Pacific and making USP even stronger.

Lena Reece is a senior multimedia journalist with FBC News.

University of the South Pacific staff say they are happy with the USP Council’s decision to reinstate Professor Pal Ahluwalia as vice-chancellor and president, according to staff union general secretary Ilima Finiasi.

However, he said, they expected council to follow through with how the BDO New Zealand report alleging irregular university finances and remuneration policies would be handled.

“I think everyone was pretty happy that the council has decided that Professor Pal will return to office,” he said.

READ MORE: Special reports on the USP leadership crisis

Finiasi said it was “rather disappointing” to see how Professor Ahluwalia has been treated, compared with those who were implicated in the BDO report.

“That was really unfair, in terms of the events which began last week, when everyone was made aware of the accusations against Professor Pal and, at the same time, his suspension — we can really see the unfairness on how this whole thing turned out.

“But as I said, we have full confidence in our council so we will let the council decide and there will be more work for them to sort through and we are happily waiting for that to come through.”

Finiasi said that following the release of the BDO report, the union had requested those who were named in it to “do the right thing”.

“I think the union, from the start of this whole thing, requested that anyone who has been implicated, they should be allowed to step down, pending investigations, but that did not happen.

“We respect the work of the council, we have full confidence in our leaders of the region and that is already before the council.

“You might be aware that the council themselves have selected a commission to look at the BDO report and to also recommend how the BDO report should be implemented and with total respect, we will allow the council to continue with their work.”

Litia Cavea is a Fiji Times reporter.

A man from humble beginnings has shown his character, as a man substance with a great love for academia and his students.

In a wide-ranging interview with Breakfast at Fiji One late last week, he has revealed himself to be a distinguished scholar with a love for USP and it students.

“I love Fiji, and I think it’s one of the best places in the world, and I’ve lived in a lot of places in the world so you know I think it’s absolutely fantastic,” he said at the start of the interview.

READ MORE: University governance, academic freedom and institutional autonomy in the Pacific

“The people here are just amazing…. And I also think if you just think about how we’ve managed the covid-19 crisis. This is just an incredible place to live,” he said.

The Kenyan-born academic studied for his bachelor’s and Master of Arts from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, and later gained his PhD from Flinders University in South Australia.

He has a wide academic and administrative experience as he has previously served as the professor of the politics at Adelaide University; visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley; professor with the Goldsmiths College at the University of London, where he also served as the director of the Centre for Postcolonial Studies and professor at University of California San Diego.

Prior his appointment as the vice-chancellor and president of USP, he served as the pro vice-chancellor for research and innovation at the University of Portsmouth.

Prolific author
Professor Ahluwalia is a prolific author, both in terms of volume and prestige. He is the sole author of four books, Politics and Post-colonial Theory: African Inflections, Post-colonialism and the Politics of Kenya, Plantations and the Politics of Sugar in Uganda, and Post-structuralism’s Colonial Roots.

He is also an editor or co-editor of several journals, including three Routledge journals, Social Identities, African Identities and Sikh Formations. However, in Fiji, he is a university administrator vice chancellor and president responsible for more than 18,000 students and approximately 1000 staff. But how did he get to Fiji?

What is his story? Revealed is Professor Paul Ahluwalia an academic, a husband, a father to a hip-hop rapper and lawyer, and a proud grandfather.

“I think if I strive for something. It is for being open for being transparent and for being African. There’s music in my family’s history and so you know it just happens that he’s [his son] has chosen this particular medium.

“And so, I’m very proud of him. He’s a very good musician. And he’s always trying to do something innovative.

“The thing about my granddaughter is that I’m absolutely excited that I haven’t had an opportunity to see her. Physically, simply because of the travel restrictions, but once I’m able to travel to Australia again you know I just very looking forward to.

“She’s gorgeous… But then everybody says that about their grandchild,” he says with the pride of grandfather.

Favourite colour blue
Yes, his favourite colour is blue, and he played a bit of sport in his younger years.

“I watch a lot of sport. When I was younger, I played a lot of field hockey. But, but now I really love cricket.

“And I guess since I’ve been in Fiji have become an absolute fan of rugby sevens”.

Not for him is the Kenyan rugby team No.1. He backs the last Olympic champions – Fiji.

“I absolutely support Fiji. No, no question about it.”

And, again coming from an Indian family, he was either expected to go into medicine or law but found his career in becoming an academic and administrator.

“I had no idea that I was going to become an academic. Again I come from a traditional Indian family, so they wanted me to be either a doctor or a lawyer.

Only career path
“This is a problem with Indians they always think that that’s the only, only career path. And that’s not meant in any derogatory way, but that I think that’s what my parents wanted and, of course when I went to university.

“I had a mentor, a professor who basically said, there are other things you can achieve in an email to me. So that’s how I became an academic, I never thought I’d become a vice-chancellor,” he said.

Administration was by pure accident, he said, because his initial ambition was to be a very good academic.

“I was able to accomplish a lot in my academic career. And I sort of fell into administration, almost by accident.

“Once I became an administrator, became a pro vice-chancellor then I thought, Okay, well you know, I always believe that you can strive for anything and so that’s when I decided that I must become a vice-chancellor.”

However, he misses the interaction with students that an academic got from entering a lecture theatre or tutorial.

“I genuinely love students and students are my passion. I’m here for them. And if every opportunity I get I’ll speak to a student,” he said in the interview.

More time with students
“They’re the reason why the university exists. So, I have absolutely no problem. I actually wish I had more time to spend more time with students,” he said.

“At heart I’m an academic, I really miss that interaction with students. I miss being able to walk into a classroom and having a tutorial or giving a lecture,” he said passionately.

He has a vision for the 12-nation USP.

“We’re already a very good institution, we have now 52 years of history. But my vision is that we want to become one of the great universities of the world.

“We’re going to be part of global rankings, where our staff have done the hard yards. They are really good researchers here. I think once we can enter those global rankings, we deserve the recognition.

“Pockets of our university already have that. Our MBA is globally recognised for what it is. And I think there’s so many other parts of the university, where we have excellence.

“We want to celebrate and show the world what a great regional university can accomplish

Praise for USP staff
He could not overlook praising his staff for their hard work and commitment.

“The trick is that you have to have a really good team working with you and I’m very lucky that my immediate staff in the office here is fantastic.

“They just are amazing people who have that experience and they’ve kept me honest; they make sure that you know that.”

He was getting a bit philosophical and wistful for USP’s students of the day.

“The young people today are so lucky. They can have exposure to so many things. And the communications revolution makes it easy for them to communicate to reach out to people across the world.

“I think it’s just such an exciting time to be young. And I think that the world is really their oyster, they can do whatever they want.

“Even with covid-19 presenting some difficulties, I think the resilience that I see in the Pacific is something that amazes me.

“And I think our young people can do anything. And they must believe in themselves. There will always be things which don’t fall into the place where you want it to, but it’s persistence and resilience that just gets you there.”

Whether those are qualities which carries the day for him, he will find out on Friday when USP Council meets to decide his fate.

A former vice-chancellor of Papua New Guinea’s University of Technology says politics has no place in university governance.

Professor Albert Schram’s comments follow last week’s suspension of the vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, by the USP Council’s executive committee.

The growing controversy at the main regional university has prompted warnings that university autonomy and academic freedom in the Pacific is under threat.

READ MORE: Covid, culture and USP’s fight to save academic freedom – David Robie
LISTEN: RNZ Pacific Dateline

Some see the latest developments as an attempt by Fiji to nationalise the regional institution.

Dr Schram said while most governments hold the appointing authority at universities, they should not select people who pursue personal and limited agendas.

“Politics should be kept out of university and there is broad consensus among all students and staff at universities in the Pacific that you shouldn’t import the problems from national politics into the university.

“Governments should be wise and not appoint people who are pursuing personal and very limited agendas.”

Nationalising plan ‘untrue’
Fiji’s Education Minister Rosy Akbar slammed claims the government was nationalising the USP.

Akbar said the criticisms were “untrue and frankly uncalled for”.

Professor Ahluwalia, who took up the role in late 2018, believes he is the victim of a witch-hunt by the leadership group.

Barely two months into his new role, he alleged abuse of office and serious mismanagement by his predecessor and the council’s leadership group led by pro-Chancellor Winston Thompson.

The Kenya-born academic said he welcomed any investigation but it should be carried out independently and not determined by the people who seemed to have a vendetta against him.

The claims were encompassed in a yet-to-be released report by forensic accountancy firm BDO Auckland.

Students, faculty and staff at the USP – including Pacific leaders and government officials – have joined calls for the removal of the executive committee.

Prior to his role at the USP, Thompson was Fiji’s ambassador to the United States in 2009 and before that served in various government ministries and companies, including a senate nomination in 1996.

Forum chief supports special meeting
The secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Dame Meg Taylor, is one of the latest figures to support Nauru’s call for a special council meeting to look into the long-running leadership and employment issues at the USP.

The chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano, said he was concerned at last week’s developments.

Natano urged Forum members to “work together, and in the Pacific way, to chart a course forward for our premier institution of learning”.

Samoan Education Minister Loau Sio has also chimed in calling on Mr Thompson to step down.

And the Cook Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared on its social media platform the need for the USP Council to ensure good governance and management was administered by due processes.

Tonga and USP donors Australia and New Zealand are in agreement that a special meeting could help to resolve the impasse.

Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, who is also chair of a USP Council subcommittee, said Professor Ahluwalia’s suspension was made by a committee which took over council powers under the cover of covid-19 emergency regulations.

Committee ‘behaving in irregular ways’
“The latest development at the university is quite appalling,” she said. “The governance which was raised in the BDO report seems to be continuing the way it is as people are behaving in very irregular ways and not following due process.”

But Thompson, who is also USP council chair, said while the professor’s suspension was not linked to the BDO report, the executive committee acted within its powers.

“The governance instruments under which we operate are clear,” he said. “The executive committee has the power under the statute and ordinances of the university to take action in the case that it did.

“For anyone to claim that it’s acting illegally is clearly incorrect.”

Dr Schram said the suspension of Professor Ahluwalia had eerie similarities to when he was dismissed in PNG in 2018 for “failing” to present his credentials.

He said the PNG Council had been misled by disgruntled staff after he eliminated illegal allowances.

He said the hiring and sacking of a vice-chancellor is the responsibility of the USP Council and not the executive committee.

Universities ‘close to becoming dysfunctional’
“I’m not surprised at all that vice-chancellor Ahluwalia ran into the same problems that I had because universities in the Pacific are very close to becoming completely dysfunctional and collapsing.

“And in that manner they aren’t able to provide a good learning environment for the students and do not contribute to nationbuilding at all.”

Dr Schram said the USP episode left a bad taste of “corruption and xenophobia” and warned the university could succumb to political infighting as had happened in PNG.

He said universities should govern their own affairs.

“From my experience what you have seen in the last 10 years or so is that without changing the acts of the university, the governments in the Pacific have been encroaching upon their [universities] autonomy slowly.

“In Papua New Guinea, we have seen how that how that can really get out of hand. In 2014, they passed the Higher Education Act, which had some consequential amendments for the University Act, but the only consequential amendments regarded the appointment of the vice-chancellor and chancellor.

“So the Higher Education Act was all about the government getting control and as the vice chancellor, you have the responsibility of upholding the provisions of your University Act.”

Student experience needs to be at centre
Dr Schram, who also served on the council of the University of Papua New Guinea, said Fiji should avoid the fate of PNG universities.

“We’re used to putting the students’ experience as the centre of all our activity, not the allowances and the appointments of the staff.

“Now if you have a heavily politicised university then the only reason for its existence becomes as a source of income for the staff families and that’s not how it should be.”

Stakeholders at the regional institution are being urged to act quickly to address the fallout from the suspension.

Dr Schram said New Zealand was one of the main financial contributors to the university and along with Australia needed to take a lead role in resolving the situation at the USP.

The University of the South Pacific is headquartered in Suva, but is owned by 12 governments, with campuses in several countries.

Meanwhile, a special meeting of the USP Council is supposed to be held this week.

Nauru President Lionel Rouwen Aingimea has proposed that either Australia or New Zealand will organise the virtual meeting rather than staff from the university.

In a letter to Thompson, Aingimea said this was for “transparency and security reasons”, saying “the suspension of Professor Ahluwalia must be dealt with at the first possible opportunity”.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Michael Field on the USP leadership crisis talks to the PMC Southern Cross radio

The current leadership crisis at the University of the South Pacific is worrying and must be sorted out. That responsibility belongs to the governing USP Council.

I hope they do that with diligence, intelligence and wisdom.

What is much more shocking is the revelation of financial mismanagement and the disregard of USP policies and statutes that have occurred during the tenure of former Vice-Chancellor, Rajesh Chandra.

READ MORE: Secret report reveals widespread salary and allowance rorts at USP

Although many of us have not seen or read the full 114-page BDO New Zealand report, the snippets that have so far been shared publicly are alarming. They reveal how certain individuals have milked the university’s coffers. This is not only irresponsible, but could potentially be criminal.

Here, I want to dwell on another aspect of the USP story and why the current events have sent a tsunami of concerns and anger across our Oceania region and beyond.

This is because many of us have deep and special relationships with this institution. It is not just a place where we went to school, our alma mater, or a place of employment. It is more than that.

This is our intellectual home, a place where some of us grew up and with which we are deeply connected.

USP was the place where we learned to navigate the academic ocean; where we tried out ideas; where we made mistakes and learned to correct them; where we met, got to know and befriend people from other parts of Oceania; where we first fell in love and made love for the first time; where we first experienced heartbreaks; where some met our spouses; where some had our first child and buried their umbilical cord.

USP is therefore a sacred place of learning and where we weave and maintain relationships across Oceania.

Even years after leaving USP, every time I go back it’s like going home.

This is why many of us are sad and angry about how a few people have selfishly and disrespectfully desecrated this institution, a place that many of us are deeply connected to.

How dare they do that!

Dr Tarcisius Kabutaulaka of the Solomon Islands is an associate professor and political scientist with a doctorate from the Australian National University and undergraduate and MA degrees from the University of the South Pacific. He joined the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawai’i in 2009 and has served as director since August 2018. This commentary was originally published on his Facebook page and has been republished here with the author’s permission.

The decision to suspend the academic chief of the University of the South Pacific pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations of “material misconduct” was made legally by the university’s executive committee, says pro-chancellor Winston Thompson.

Thompson was responding yesterday to claims from concerned staff, students and some council members that the suspension of vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia on Monday was illegitimate.

During a press conference at USP’s Research Office at Laucala campus, he said the university’s statutes and ordinances to govern the discipline of the vice-chancellor gave them the mandate to act on behalf of the full council.

READ MORE: Secret report reveals widespread salary and allowance rorts at USP

Noting that the investigation of material misconduct against the vice-chancellor was a separate issue and in not linked to the log of allegations of financial mismanagement against past management put forth to the council by Professor Ahluwalia in March last year.

“This investigation of the VC, which was the subject of the meeting on Monday, is a different thing completely. These are allegations of misdemeanors, material misconduct that the current VC has been responsible for since he has been in office,” Thompson said.

“There is a lot of misinformation, disinformation and downright untruths that are being put into the public domain and that is causing everyone, especially staff and students, to be concerned,” he said.

“An independent investigation is going to be carried out to establish whether these allegations against the VC are true or not. This process would also clear him [Professor Ahluwalia] if he has not caused any gross negligence in the discharge of his responsibility.

‘Allegations need to be investigated’
“A suspension doesn’t mean that he is guilty but the allegations need to be investigated, and there are not one or two allegations. There is a long list. But a thorough investigation will be carried out so that the facts of those allegations will come forward.

“The governance instruments under which we operate are clear. The EC has the power under the statutes and ordinances of the university to take action in the case that it did on issues that it took on Monday.

“For anyone to claim that it is acting illegally is clearly incorrect.”

He said the terms of the EC was to take action when it seemed there was something serious taking place at the university and by mandate, the EC was not required to consult the whole membership of the council.

“So we do these things in our own judgment and in this case, there was clear evidence that some material misconduct had taken place, and we needed to deal with it. I was prepared to handle it internally and keep it under control but it was taken out of our hands when the whole council was circulated with all the material. The EC is empowered to do these things, it doesn’t have to consult the whole of the council members,” Thompson said.

This week, USP’s incoming chancellor and Nauru’s President Lionel Aingimea called for a special council meeting to urgently reverse what he claims was an illegitimate decision to suspend Professor Ahluwalia.

He claimed the decision by the EC had jeopardised the future of the institution and it was high time the council met to begin the process of removing pro-chancellor Winston Thompson and conduct the election of the deputy pro-chancellor.

Thompson’s statement contradicted
Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa also told local media FBC News that the USP Council did not suspend Professor Ahluwalia, contradicting Thompson’s statement that the EC was empowered and that it did not have to consult the full council.

“The council itself is large and it meets twice a year and in between the council meetings, the EC meets four times a year. The EC’s function is to decide on things that are delegated from the council to do in between council meetings and also in emergencies to act for the council,” Thompson said.

“So it isn’t just a small group of people meeting and making decisions. It is mandated to do these things when the university is under threat.”

Meanwhile, Thompson confirmed that they had received a quorum to hold a full council meeting and this would be organised once logistics were finalised.

However, he said his appointment was made by the council and removing him would require a two-thirds vote from the full council.

The Pacific Media Centre republishes Wansolwara articles in a partnership with the University of the South Pacific journalism programme.

The Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Dame Meg Taylor, is the latest figure to support Nauru’s call to convene a special meeting of the University of the South Pacific Council in the long-running leadership saga.

In a letter to incoming chancellor of the USP, Nauru President Lionel Aingimea, she has declared: “As a council member, I confirm my support for your proposal to convene a special meeting. I will await further advice of the details of the meeting, in due course.

“Thank you for your astute leadership on this matter.”

READ MORE: Nauru president accuses Fiji group of ‘hijacking’ USP in vendetta

The letter was posted on social media, which is widely used in the Pacific, by New Zealand journalist Michael Field, who broke the story about the controversial contents of the BDO Auckland report into alleged mismanagement at the USP.

Islands Business news magazine today published a full report which Field said was leaked to him and it outlines details of mismanagement of funds and cronyism at USP.

Suspended vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia believes he is the victim of a witchhunt at USP after he exposed an alleged system of rorts and questionable contracts in late 2018 when he took up the post.

“I have no doubt that this is a byproduct of that initial report that I took. Since then, I have been vilified and as a whistleblower, in most places where I come from in the world – including Australia and the UK where I’ve lived – whistleblowers are protected,” he told RNZ Dateline in an interview.

“Here I have been thrown under the bus.”

LISTEN: Dateline interview with Professor Pal Ahluwalia

Professor Ahluwalia also found himself locked out of his office and his email account at the university has been disabled.

Senior academics and staff at USP in Suva are accused in a special audit report of manipulating allowances to pay themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars they were not entitled to, as several Pacific governments say Fiji is using the covid-19 emergency as a cover to take over the university, according to Field’s report in Islands Business.

“The scale of allowance abuse has outraged Pacific member nations of USP, including Nauru, Samoa, Tonga and New Zealand. USP staff are accused of helping themselves to money intended to educate the people of the Pacific,” Field wrote.

“The payments took place under the leadership of Fiji vice-chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra. They were revealed by his replacement, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, on November 1, 2018.

“Since then, vice-chancellor Ahluwalia and USP pro-chancellor Winston Thompson have been at loggerheads, with their opposing factions rallying behind them.”

The international accounting firm BDO was engaged to investigate and provide an independent report.  However, the report which names 25 individuals at the university has remained under wraps since last August.

Professor Ahluwalia was suspended on pay and privileges this week by the USP Council’s executive committee in what critics say was a breach of protocols to investigate allegations against him.

Vendetta a “nonsense”
Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, described the executive committee’s decision as “irregular” and that pro-chancellor Thompson’s vendetta was “nonsense”, according to the Samoa Observer.

“It is our view that the University Council had determined how it would deal with these issues and the council asked the pro-chancellor and vice-chancellor to work together and keep to their own mandates, but it had become very obvious that the pro-chancellor is very obstructive,” said Fiame.

Pro-chancellor Thompson today claimed that the executive committee acted within its powers to investigate allegations of material misconduct against Vice-Chancellor Pal Ahluwalia and to suspend him pending an independent investigation.

Thompson told a media conference at USP claims that the executive committee had acted illegally on Monday were incorrect.

He said he and acting vice-chancellor Professor Derrick Armstrong had offered to meet the students but this was rejected by the University of the South Pacific Students Association (USPSA) while the staff had agreed to meet this morning.

However, this morning the staff told him and Armstrong that they were not available to meet.

He claimed the staff asked about the press conference but they were told they had lost the opportunity as the meeting scheduled prior did not eventuate.

Australia and NZ ‘diplomatic’
Both Australia and New Zealand – the two largest donor countries for the 12-nation regional university – have reacted diplomatically over the crisis.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said her government was concerned about the “leadership issues” at USP, reports FBC.

Payne said Australia recognised USP as an important and highly valued regional institution and tertiary provider in the Pacific.

She added that Australia was a longstanding partner of USP and it was  strongly committed to supporting education in the region.

Payne said she had also called for a special meeting of the USP Council.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) spokeswoman told Pacific Media Watch:

“MFAT is closely monitoring the situation and has nothing further to say at this point.”

Largest donors
New Zealand was the 12-country USP’s second-largest funder behind Australia, contributing US$3.5m ($NZ5.3m) in 2017.

Australia contributed $US13m to the USP in 2017, the European Union $1.5m, Japan $2.3m and other partners $2m, according to the USP’s accounts for that year.

Established in 1968, USP is jointly owned by the governments of 12 member countries – Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Samoa.

Fiji is USP’s biggest member contributor.

Nauru president accuses Fiji group of ‘hijacking’ USP in vendetta

Senior academics and staff at the University of the South Pacific in Suva are accused in a special audit report of manipulating allowances to pay themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars they were not entitled to, as several Pacific governments say Fiji is using the covid-19 emergency as a cover to take over the university.

The scale of allowance abuse has outraged Pacific member nations of USP, including Nauru, Samoa, Tonga and New Zealand. USP staff are accused of helping themselves to money intended to educate the people of the Pacific.

The payments took place under the leadership of Fiji vice-chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra. They were revealed by his replacement, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, on November 1, 2018.

READ MORE: Albert Schram on Pacific university governance and academic freedom

Since then, vice-chancellor Ahluwalia and USP pro-chancellor Winston Thompson have been at loggerheads, with their opposing factions rallying behind them.

This week a contentious meeting of the executive committee of USP’s Council installed Professor Derrick Armstrong as acting VC after suspending Professor Ahluwalia.

Professor Ahluwalia’s whistleblowing forced Thompson to bring in the Auckland office of international accounting firm BDO to investigate. BDO Auckland’s report was submitted to USP on August 21 last year, but kept secret.

The report has now been leaked as Professor Ahluwalia comes under attack from USP’s host government, Fiji.

Critics claim Fiji is trying to “nationalise” the 52-year-old regional institution. Fiji’s Education Minister, Rosy Akbar, denies this is the case.

Along with the 114-page BDO report, a cache of USP documents reveal attempts to drive Professor Ahluwalia out of the country.

Professor Ahluwalia, born in Kenya and schooled in Canada, was appointed by the USP Council as VC to replace Professor Chandra. BDO suggests this was against the wishes of Thompson and Fiji, and evidence is revealed that efforts began, even before Professor Ahluwalia arrived, to frustrate his work.

In May last year Professor Ahluwalia revealed the financial and salary rorting underway and presented the USP Council with a paper, “Issues, concerns and breaches of past management and financial decisions.”

BDO was hired to investigate.

In the report, BDO names 25 senior USP academics and staff who, it is alleged, were involved in payment manipulation. Most of the cases involved a system of allowance payments not usually seen in other universities.

This excerpt from independent New Zealand journalist Michael Field’s article is republished here with permission. Read the full report in the latest edition of Islands Business news magazine. Although the BDO consultancy report names individuals, the magazine has opted to not publish them based on legal advice.

• Fiji suspension move against USP chief ‘nonsense’, says Samoan deputy PM