Your views Re: 101 USP job losses?

‘A good newspaper is a nation talking to itself’

I refer to the Fiji Sun report on USP reorganisation from September 26, titled “101 USP Job losses?”.

USP Vice-Chancellor and President (VCP) has assured to the University community that nobody will be sent home as a result of a planned reorganisation.

He stressed that USP will renew contracts whenever this is required under existing regulations. Job losses might happen only when people drop out of employment because they have reached retirement age or because they wish to retire.

A paper presented to USP Senate highlights: “USP Management will only consider staff reduction or redundancies as a last resort”. This mirrors exactly USP regulation on Staff Reduction.

Indeed this was before a bombshell exploded, when the Minister for Economy announced to hold back the Fijian Government funding to USP until allegations against the VCP have been investigated.

USP Council did follow regulations when investigating alleged ‘material misconduct’ of its VCP.

It is within Council’s power to make decisions about such allegations, including deciding to dismiss the allegations.

USP Council dismissed the allegations, as most Council members could not find ‘material misconduct’. The VCP was not involved in Council’s deliberations and subsequent decision.

I was already a member of USP when in 2004 discussions of a reorganisation started. First, discussions were at academic discipline levels, then they went to Senate, and finally USP Council approved the new structure. It just does not work when Council approves a structure before it has been laid out. This takes nothing away from USP Council to approve a new structure or to decline it.

I am unsure, what to tell to my students. Heaps of them have approached me, as they feel extremely frustrated. They have experienced a refreshing wind enhancing quality of learning since 2019, when USP’s VCP changed.

Most of my colleagues are irritated as well to see an institution murdered; an institution older than the state of Fiji. An experience that has survived four coups in Fiji, civil unrest in a couple of member countries, and financial crises.

It certainly would not only be a loss to Fiji and the Pacific Island region, if USP disappeared. It indeed would be a loss to the entire world of tertiary learning, teaching and research.