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This testimony was collected as part of the research project entitled “In the eye of the storm: Higher education in an age of crises” conducted by Howard Stevenson, Maria Antonietta Vega Castillo, Melanie Bhend, and Vasiliki-Eleni Selechopoulou for Education International. The research report and executive summary are available here.

Worlds of Education: Your union organises staff at the University of the South Pacific, which has a particularly international makeup. Can you tell us more about your university and the challenges you are facing?

The University of the South Pacific was founded in 1968 and is owned by 12 countries across the region. The university also receives support from the governments of Australia and New Zealand. All 14 countries are represented on the university’s Council.

In recent years, the university has made a strategic decision to drive down costs by prioritising the development of online learning. In the past, scholarships had been available to allow students in the region to come to Fiji to study on campus, but the scholarships are being cut, reducing student numbers and university revenue. The university’s response has been to pivot to online learning.

Worlds of Education: How has the shift to online learning affected staff?

Prioritising online learning has meant that staff on full-time contracts are being replaced by external academics on part-time contracts who are delivering online classes. Many external academics are based in countries at considerable distance from the students and their realities. They are only paid to deliver online teaching at rates that work out at approximately 30% of the equivalent cost of full-time staff, who carry many more responsibilities .

So, staff concerns relate to job security, but also working conditions as the workload shared across academic staff is carried out by a smaller number of people.

The university has also devolved budgets within the institution, so if departments do not generate sufficient revenue they are forced to cut costs. This further drives the shift towards outsourced and casualised labour.

Worlds of Education: What has been the impact on students?

Our union has raised serious concerns about the quality of the student experience.

This decision simply ignores the reality in the region. Technological infrastructure across the region is poor and cannot support online teaching and learning with the required consistency. We do not have the infrastructure to cater to the needs of the students and effectively deliver these courses online. Furthermore, we fear that students who need access to high quality education the most, will have the worst access.

This will certainly affect the overall quality of education in our region. Are we preparing students well to go out as graduates of the university and serve their countries? This is the question we put to the university.

Worlds of Education: How did your union respond to this drive to commercialise higher education and what were the results?

Our union lobbied the University Council relentlessly and raised concerns about the impacts on both staff and students. We also worked with other stakeholders to raise their grievances.

In October 2024 our union took the unprecedented step to strike for four days to voice our concerns about the university’s leadership and governance. Specifically, we called for the removal of the Vice-Chancellor .

There were many reasons for the strike, including issues the union had raised as far back as 2021 to no avail: unfilled vacancies for both academic and support positions, issues related to promotion, retention of staff from the region (Pacific Islanders), inequitable representation of women in senior management positions, the unsustainable workload of academic staff, academic representation on the University Council, job evaluation for support staff. Management’s refusal to negotiate on salaries and the abusive termination of AUSPS President Dr Tamara Osborne marked the breaking point.

Our mobilisation resulted in significant progress, with the University Council responding positively to many of the issues we raised. Negotiations on salaries began and the Council approved a backdated salary from 2019-2023. University management also reconvened meetings with our union to discuss our grievances so dialogue was reestablished.

Another positive development was that a new Pro Vice Chancellor was elected by the USP Council, and a Visitor is now appointed to adjudicate over staff disputes above the level of the Vice Chancellor. The Council also launched an independent investigation into the termination of Dr Tamara Osborne, a deeply unfair and abusive decision we hope to see reversed soon.