LAST week, there was a forceful Letter to the Editor The Fiji Times by Professor Vijay Naidu, pointing to some weaknesses in the management of USP by the current Vice Chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia. Professor Naidu hoped optimistically that a new Vice Chancellor could be appointed so that “the regional university can plan for a better future”.
Certainly, VC Pal over-reacted in sacking USP lecturer Dr Osborne-Naikatini for talking with the media as she was perfectly entitled to as a union rep.
But unfortunately, the USP problems are far more deep-seated, all requiring a massive institutional cleanup at all levels, including that at the USP Council level, the senior management including the VC, and at the currently dormant senior academia who in the golden years were passionately devoted to USP despite the pull of higher salaries abroad.
What needs to be highlighted to the stakeholders of USP are the many negative institutional developments that have taken place at USP under the previous vice-chancellors and continued by the current one, undermining good governance at USP, and undermining the quality of education provided to Fiji and the Pacific.
In the normal capitalist economy, the shareholders who own a company, hold the management of that company to account. Unfortunately, USP is not a typical private company with private shareholders.
USP’s real stakeholders include not just the governments of the region -who make annual contributions to USP and are represented in USP Council – but the thousands of parents who pay the fees of private students who are not represented directly on USP Council, even though private fees are now the largest component of USP revenues.
At the heart of USP’s problems is that the stakeholders of USP, and especially the public taxpayers and private students and their parents, have failed to hold USP Council and management to account, even though they can see the many things going wrong.
Key problem areas include the following:
– the virtual absence of USP Council’s accountability to the stakeholders;
– the failure of the public to hold USP Council and USP management to account over failures;
– the quiet collusion of USP senior managers with rogue vice chancellors;
– the Vice Chancellor’s tightened control of senior academic voices to USP Council;
– the serious weaknesses in stakeholder representation to USP Council;
– the dormancy of staff associations and unions;
– the dormancy of committed regional academics who once had high profiles in the region
– the failure of USP vice chancellors to serve the stakeholders first and foremost, not some irrelevant Times Higher Education World Ranking some often quote as empty self-praise.
I refer to these problems below.
The solid body of knowledge on USP
The public, researchers and students, have no excuse for not knowing what these fundamental problems are at USP as Fiji Times has already published many articles by me, the more recent starting with the 2019 expulsion of VC Pal from Fiji by the Bainimarama Government – they can all be read on the The Fiji Times archives online.
“Expelling VC Ahluwalia: when the line is not drawn” (FT 13 Feb. 2019)
“USP in crisis: another NBF” (FT 16 June 2020)
“BDO Report is not history” (FT (26 June 2020)
“USP: the illusion of government grants” (FT 24 Oct. 2020)
“USP’s Fiji bogey” (FT 31 Oct. 2020)
“A USP Council solution to Fiji’s non-payment of fees” (FT 23 July 2022)
“Voters and USP: what government do you want?” (FT 5 Nov. 2022)
But more important are earlier articles between 2011 and 2015 which were not published in the The Fiji Times because of the evil censorship of the media during the height of the Bainimarama/Sayed-Khaiyum dictatorship, but in international blogs, with some only appearing as Letters to the Editor:
“USP’s Professor Wadan Narsey sent packing” (Radio NZ 19 Aug. 2011, NarseyOnFiji, 2012);
“USP Censors World Press Freedom Day” (Pacific Media Centre 15 May 2013);
“Creeping totalitarianism at USP” (Letter to USP Council and Member Governments, 15 May 2014);
“Does Khaiyum really want analytical economists” (Letter to Editor, 26 August 2014);
“Prof. Biman Prasad victimised at USP” (Letter to Editor 30 May 2014);
“Some USP investigations quick off the mark” (Fijileaks, 30 June 2014);
“USP VC stops panel discussion” (NarseyOnFiji, 10 October 2015;
“The declining quality of USP graduates” (FT 24 Oct. 2015).
All these articles are in a Section C on USP in my Volume 2 A Fair Go For All Fiji. 2024, available on Amazon Books for US$5.
I next briefly outline a few of the important sources of the cancer at USP today.
The malevolent political influences on USP
Political interference with USP is not new. The first USP Vice Chancellor in the 1970s, Colin Aikman, failed to defend a Professor of Mathematics (Theo MacDonald) who had been banned by the Mara Government from re-entering Fiji after he had gone to Australia for medical treatment for his daughter. A precursor for VC Pal’s expulsion from Fiji.
Then after the 1987 coup, there was much victimisation of academics like Anirudh Singh, Som Prakash and Vijay Naidu who actively opposed the Rabuka coup. But they were defended by VC Caston.
Fourteen years ago, a USP Vice Chancellor (the late Rajesh Chandra) gave in to the Bainimarama Government’s financial blackmail and forced the resignation of a Professor of Economics who had been actively criticising the Bainimarama Government for illegally reducing the pensions of FNPF pensioners.
But that VC was not alone. An audio recording of the critical management meeting shows that the Vice Chancellor was fully supported by the three other senior management of USP present then (two Deputy Vice Chancellors and a Faculty Dean). The VC succeeded with his academic censorship because of the support of his senior management team.
When the USP Vice Chancellor censored public discussions at USP at least twice (World Press Freedom Day and a Panel Discussion), there was no opposition from the senior USP Heads of faculties and departments. Neither did any of these senior management and academics take these critical issues to USP Council which could have held the USP Vice Chancellor to account.
When the same USP management led by the late Professor Chandra put pressure on a Faculty Head to remove two critical Professors of Economics (Biman Prasad and Wadan Narsey) from the Governing Board of the USP premier Journal of Pacific Studies, that pressure was acceded to. It was later reversed when one Professor protested at this censorship, and an apology duly given to him.
Once upon a time, the senior academics who went to USP Council were voices independent of the USP vice chancellor. Not any more. Successive USP vice chancellors have ensured that the academic voices that go to USP Council do the VC’s bidding and “toe the line”.
Of course, the then Chairperson of USP Council was independently made aware of censorship of critical academics and students. She failed to respond and certainly did not raise their concerns with the USP Management or the public in Fiji or other member States. There is no record of USP Council members raising these issues in their biennial meetings around the Pacific.
It has been amply pointed by many former USP academics that USP today does not have the great public discourses, debates and panel discussions it used to have ten years ago. But the Bainimarama censorship years have been gone for more than two years and still USP appears to be dead intellectually even under VC Pal.
Why have USP academics not risen to the wider challenge of promoting public policy discourse at USP? Surely VC Pal cannot be blamed for that? Indeed, one can see more public debate taking place today at Fiji National University, with nowhere near the numbers of senior academics that USP has.
Why has no USP Council member or member of the public pointed out that the USP website has completely removed much relevant documents and information from its webpage, that used to be there twenty years ago?
Again, this cannot be laid solely at the door of VC Pal, as this trend of denying the public relevant information began under the previous VC the late Professor Rajesh Chandra.
To continue next week: Failed Governance through USP Council
PROF WADAN NARSEY is one of the region’s senior economists and a regular commentator on political and economic issues in Fiji. The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of The Fiji Times.
