Pacific needs to rethink tertiary education strategy - academic Featured
Academic Prof Brij Lal
8 February, 2018. A renowned Pacific academic says countries in the region need to rethink their tertiary education strategies.
Brij Lal, emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University, made the comments in light of the University of the South Pacific's celebration of its Golden Jubilee year.
Professor Lal started his academic journey with the USP in 1971 three years after it was created.
He said academia today is more globalised and the region needs to talk about improving the quality of tertiary education for future generations of Pacific Islanders.
"I mean you have a number of universities now in the islands. You have the National University of Samoa, you have the Solomon Islands University, there are three universities in Fiji so I think there has to be co-ordination between all these universities so that talk about how they can work co-operatively without duplicating the functions of each other."
-RNZI
2 comments
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DR. BRIJ LAL MAY NEED TO EXPOUND FURTHER ON THESE COMMENTS...Globalization is not an end to seek after by all societies; it's an European Union theory being shoved down smaller nations' throats. Tonga for example is a sovereign nation and must seek her pathway to the future based on her own traditional past, and shaped by modern day needs.
Universities in the region may differ in their visions and missions, but basic subjects of mathematics, science, business, and the arts are duplicated on all campuses. Students should receive the same academic challenges at each school. -
What a great call for the requirement to improve through constant development and refinement the "quality" of Moana Oceania / Pacific tertiary education, now thought to be highly globalised in today's world. Given the current state of the art, must we improve both the "quality" and the "quantity" of tertiary education, where both theoretical inquiry and applied research are equally emphasised in the process, with the former taking the lead over the latter, in that logical order of precedence.
In doing so, regional tertiary institutions stand, by way of coordination of both theoretical inquiry and applied research activities across disciplines through active engagement and competition, in order to make both substantial and original contributions to both knowledge production and knowledge application, informed by both creativity and innovation, This includes refined knowledge and skills respectively composed and transmitted in regional cultures and languages.