Pan-Pacific university doubles student aid amid global fuel crisis

The world’s most dispersed university has doubled its hardship fund to help stop the Middle Eastern conflict from derailing study in an institution that straddles four time zones on the other side of the planet.

The University of the South Pacific (USP) has announced a bursary support package to protect students and their families “from the rising cost pressures associated with the global fuel crisis”.

USP also plans to broaden access to aid, saying the impacts of rising transport, food and energy costs are “now being felt well beyond the most financially vulnerable households”.

Pro-chancellor Siosiua Utoikamanu said the moves reflected the university’s duty of care to students.

“Our first priority is to ensure that no student is left behind because of circumstances beyond their control,” said Utoikamanu, a former Tongan finance minister. “Too often, our Pacific communities bear a disproportionate share of the consequences of global crises to which they have contributed least, whether through the impacts of climate change or the economic shocks flowing from conflicts far beyond our region.

“Our responsibility as the university serving the Pacific is to ensure that our students are not asked to carry that burden alone. This support is about ensuring our students can stay enrolled, stay engaged, and succeed.”

USP has 14 campuses in 12 island nations on either side of the International Date Line. Its most distant bases are about 4,500 kilometres apart, and many of its 30,000-odd students island-hop to attend the biggest campus in Fiji.

The new package will raise the current student hardship and bursary allocation from F$495,000 (£167,000) to $F1 million, USP said, with more information on the bursary scheme to be available “soon”.

The university said it had also adopted a “broader preparedness framework” to “strengthen operational resilience” in the face of fuel uncertainty. The measures – including “flexible learning continuity arrangements” and “targeted support for vulnerable campuses” – will be “activated progressively as conditions require”.

The fuel crisis is the latest upheaval at an institution that has endured more than its share of turbulence from both external and local factors. Covid-19 was particularly unsettling for the world’s most pan-national university, while the institution has lurched between leadership crises for much of the past seven years.

Staff who had stood by former vice-chancellor Pal Ahluwalia during his conflict with Fijian authorities, which at one stage saw him deported from the country, later turned against him in disputes reportedly over pay and the sacking of a union leader.

Ahluwalia’s tenure ended in September last year. Since then, the institution has been run by an interim management group chaired by Utoikamanu.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com