The Vice-Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific (USP), Professor Pal Ahluwalia has expressed grave concern about the university’s financial state, of the University, in an interview with the Pacific Advocate.
The Fijian government continues to hold on to its grant to the regional institution. As of February this year, Fiji’s withheld contribution was around $62 million.
The Pacific Advocate says Fijian government, the grant will not be released if Prof Ahluwalia stays at the helm as the standoff between the academic and Fiji led to his expulsion.
The USP Council which is made of 12 Pacific nations has kept Prof Ahluwalia on and even extended his contract.
“Of course they are not good. Fiji is our largest donor. They provide a grant and the grant is based on a formula dependent on the number of students that each country has. So Fiji has the largest number of students so the people who are actually suffering are our students,” said Prof Ahluwalia.
“They are suffering because while we have put all our efforts to the teaching and learning of our students, we are not able to replenish some of our facilities.”
According to Prof Ahluwalia, USP’s aging infrastructure and unattended maintenance is not helping anyone.
“I inherited a mess in the sense that there was over FJ$36 million (AU$24million) of maintenance that had not been carried out for over a decade and there is nothing that I can do about that,” he said.
“In Samoa, things were just allowed to slide and are dilapidated and I have got to fix that. What was happening before was that all of the resources were just poured into Laucala without any attention to anywhere else.”
While the grant has been stopped, the Fijian government continues to pay students’ fees through their education loan scheme and scholarship awards.
Source: Pacific Advocate
