Uni must explain very high salaries
THE University of the South Pacific council must explain the basis for paying “extravagant salaries” for a small-scale university with around 9200 full-time students.
This, according to a new research paper released by the University of New South Wales in Australia authored by senior lecturer Dr Rohitash Chandra who was a lecturer at USP from 2013-2015.
“The salary scale (not the exact amount) of the senior management team should be made public just as you have the salary scale of the academics and support staff,” Dr Chandra said in the research paper.
“If you are justifying this as a breach of privacy, then what about the privacy of the rest of the academic staff as their pay scale and step is published? We do not see this information given for the senior management.
“USP is a public-funded university where the Fijiian government has been the major donor. If USP wants to maintain transparency, all senior level positions (such as Dean and DVC, VC) need to have a salary range when these positions are advertised,” Dr Chandra said.
“Looking at the pay scale, USP is paying academic staff more than Australian and New Zealand universities, if you take into account the tax table and cost of living in Fiji.
“USP Annual Report 2021 shows that there were seven individuals paid $240-$300,000 and another three were paid above $300,000. I assume most of these are individuals from the senior management team who do not usually have a teaching load.
“I think Fijian universities should have the same pay scale for different academic positions since they are all funded by the Fijian government.”
In response, USP said: “USP’s salaries are published in its annual report and that this is a publicly available document.”