A new alliance for higher education institutions in the Western Pacific has been established with the University of Fiji and the Atenisi Institute of Tonga leading the way to deliver a unique blend of education for holistic knowledge-building in the Pacific.
UniFiji Vice Chancellor, Professor Shaista Shameem says University’s relationship of cooperation with Atenisi is based on their core values in education.
Professor Shameem says Atenisi Institute was on her radar for collaboration as it had started in the 1970s with a different approach to learning, based on culture, humanity, relationships and a rigorous inter-disciplinary focus.
She says while many higher education institutions had been captured by skills-based domination they remained true to their roots as providers of education for students and to develop cultural capital to ensure prosperity for all.
The Vice Chancellor says all academics and intellectuals in the Pacific had to be reminded of the question that the founder of Atenisi University, Dr Futa Helu, had asked, namely, whether they were providing education for enlightenment and knowledge or for subservience.
During the graduation of Atenisi’s students she told the graduates that while education is generally provided for employment, the definition of employment itself needed to be revised to be inclusive.
That meant including people occupied in the informal sector, in farming and agriculture, in so-called subsistence work, mothers in the home and others not in paid employment. She says a nation needs more than just skills for the job market, for a society to grow in all its facets graduates needed to not just mechanically follow instructions like robots but to critically think through concepts and be able to show innovation and initiative.
Professor Shameem says the holistic perspective in education to fully appreciate humanity in all its diversity and variety is what the University of Fiji promoted.
The University of Fiji and Atenisi Institute will develop a programme of work over coming months in relation to their philosophy of higher education in the Pacific.
