dub Ed, Fiji: Afar cry from dreary old classrooms

dreary old classrooms

Recently a friend was telling me a story about meeting a man from Fiji driving a taxi in Melbourne. The man from Fiji was a universi ty student and my friend was perplexed when he discovered that he was studying at Central Queensland University. How could someone who was studying at a uni versity based more than 2000 kilometres to the north of Melbourne be working there when not attending lectures.

Quite simple. Central Queensland University is an entrepreneurial outfit that has taken its campuses to where the stu dents want to go. Despite its name it has campuses in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as 5 cities in Queensland. In the next few months Central Queensland University, through its corporate part ner Campus Group Holdings, will open a campus in Suva which will revolutionise the educational scene in the Pacific.

By 2001 it plans to have 2500 full-fee paying students from all over the world studying for bachelor and masters degrees in Fiji.

It will also offer english language courses and a University prepa ration course called Unileam. Most of its students will be from countries such as China and India where there is a big demand for overseas education, seemingly little affected by Asia’s economic troubles.

For Fiji, the university will have enormous benefits. Purely as an investment, the university is a major new asset. As Professor John Sharpman, the man charged with developing the Suva cam pus, points out it is not a smokestack industry. He estimates each student is likely to spend between Fslo-15,000 a year in Fiji over and above tuition fees making CQU an industry worth more than $25 million annually if student targets are met.

Unlike Fiji’s other major growth industry, garment manufac turing, the university is a prestige industry which sets Fiji among the top rank of developing nations and it brings well paid jobs with prospects. How many of those jobs will go to people from the Pacific is another matter but certainly, over time, some will. That, along with the potential competition for students, has the region’s premier university, the University of the South Pacific (USP), wor ried.

When it comes to competition for students the USP probably has little need for concern. There is no doubt that CQU, with its focus on courses in business administration, accounting, market ing, management, tourism and computing, will duplicate some courses on offer at USP. However, its fees of around $lO,OOO a year, will rule out all but the most wealthy Pacific Island students.

In fact, the new university is more likely to slow the brain drain of Pacific Island students travelling over seas for tertiary studies. Parents of students already studying in Australia have told Professor Sharpman they could save $ 14,000 a year by sending their chil dren to CQU’s Suva campus.

AusAID, the Australian government aid agency, which spon sors a lot of students in Australia, is also likely to be impressed by the cost savings involved in keeping students in the region.

Perhaps where the USP has more to worry about is in competition for its University preparation courses. The Central Queensland University’s Unileam program, at 21 weeks, is more affordable and will probably be on offer at Labasa on Fiji’s second island (which at the moment has no tertiary education facilities) as well as in Suva.

The other dimension USP will need to come to terms with is the inevitable comparisons between the two universities. In some ways this will act as a stimulus for USP forcing it to look at how it presents its programs and to improve those which are ailing.

Fortunately for USP, the CQU appears to be taking a conciliatory approach, despite its status as a fully commercial operation.

Professor Sharpman points to particular areas such as technol ogy, in which both universities face substantial costs and could work together for mutual benefit. One of the hallmarks of the CQU campus will be its 21st century technology. It plans fully interac tive links with its campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Rockhampton as well computer labs and electronic library facili ties with links with the rest of the world. Just how far it can get with those links may well depend on the extent to which USP is willing or able to share facilities.

The first students are due to enrol at the CQU Suva campus, which is located at the former telecom training site on Suva point, in July or August and work is continuing apace to avoid the dead line being put back. When it opens the campus is expecting to have around 250 students, 50 of whom have already begun their programs through CQU’s earlier arrangement with the local train ing provider Jobs Fiji. The rest will come from overseas. But will they come? CQU is confident they will.

Although the decision to locate the campus in Suva is some thing of an historic accident (prompted by the offer of the telecom site) Professor Sharpman say it has crucial advantages over Australia. Apart from the cost of living, which is substantially lower, and the idyllic setting, it overcomes one of the major prob lems facing Chinese students wanting an Australian education poor visa access. Since the Tianamen Square incident more than 10 years ago Australia has severely restricted student visas to Chinese students because it found so many were overstaying or coming with no intention of returning home.

CQU has solved many of the visa problems for Chinese stu dents in Fiji by offering to handle all their visa applications and arranging for streamlined processing by Fiji immigration. It will also post a bond to pay for students return airfare if they drop out or fail to meet the university’s requirements. CQU will offer extra curricular activities such as visits to villages and access to Fiji’s tourist facilities. The world of the commercial university is cer tainly a far cry from the dreary old classrooms many of us are familiar with - so much so one CQU official has dubbed its Suva campus Club Ed.

Jemima Garrett