A COLUMN WRITTEN BY KALIOPATE TAVOLA, PUBLISHED IN ISLANDS BUSINESS, AUG 2020

The dust may have settled in some aspects of the saga at the University of the South Pacific (USP) campus. Vice Chancellor and President Pal Ahluwalia and Pro Chancellor Winston Thompson may have worked out a harmonious modus operandi between them, under their respective terms of reference, to patch up the unity that has been subverted and which is desperately needed. The fine print of the truce may have prioritized the improvement of ‘governance within the institution’, as earnestly solicited by the new Chancellor of the university, President Lionel Aingimea of Nauru. And the students are back in the lecture rooms for lessons and assignments.

However, there are grey areas and questions left unanswered. There is no resolution, for example, on the debate on whether or not the BDO Report and all the indictments it contains can be trashed onto the historic scrapheap and best forgotten. Further, there is an eerie silence on the political economy aspects of Fiji’s sizable contributions to the university budget and her prominence as a host government. Though not articulated, there were commentators who proffered these aspects as extenuation for Fiji’s conduct of matters in the USP Council.

These factors among others have been, inevitably, been brought up for public and regional discussions. And these are issues that are fundamental to the life and sustainability of the university. So much so that the question of its future rings loudest as a pivotal matter for genuine reflections. The University’s sustainability as a regional good is an obvious candidate for reflection. A regional good is simply that which meets the interests and needs of members. If such sustainability cannot be envisaged, what form of ‘public good’, or otherwise, USP is going to become?

At the establishment of the University in 1968, USP would have been promoted as a ‘regional good’. It preceded the formation of the South Pacific Forum (SPF) in 1971 – that later became the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in 2000: PIF being the embodiment of the regional body politic that is Pacific regionalism.

At the time, the regional good that is the USP would not have been subjected to a series of tests (7-8 tests as a requirement of PIF today) to evaluate its feasibility and sustainability as a regional action. However, for decades USP proved a success. Under PIF’s nomenclature, USP was generally promoted as an example of a regional service delivery resulting from pooling of members’ resources. A 2014 study: “Regional Service Delivery among Pacific Island Countries” by Matthew Dornan and Tess Newton Cain affirmed that USP was proving a success as a pooled service. The study also confirmed that ‘national capacity building’ was indeed an objective of the institution. Subsequent studies have reaffirmed USP’s role not only in capacity building but also in regional integration.

There have been occasions in the past when USP was referred to as a ‘public good’. But commentators are divided on this. The Pacific Plan Review Report of 2013, for example, sided with those who have been reluctant to treat any regional initiative in the Pacific as a public good. A subsequent report in 2015, noting that USP may already be excluding students due to restriction of space and resources and therefore not meeting its ‘non-excludability’ requirement, suggested that USP may already be a hybrid. Some have determined it as a ‘quasi-public good’.

To have a better handle on how to view the kind of institution USP is going to become in the future, it is prudent to revert to basics: to subject the institution, as it exists today, to the regionality tests.

But, first, if USP was promoted as a regional good in 1968, a more suitable nomenclature should have been suggested after 2000 – as a ‘subregional good’ since not all PIF members have ownership of the university. The ‘regional good’ label however persisted.

Under the ‘Market test’, it can be noted that whilst the market may not initiate another sub-regional university in the foreseeable future, the market however is initiating and has initiated a number of national universities in the region. These national universities are essentially aimed at servicing the national demand for tertiary education. Overtime, however, they are likely to adversely impact the demand for places at USP in some areas of study. That is likely to undermine the economic and financial feasibility of USP.

As regards ‘Sovereignty test’, it is noted that the recent USP saga can be justifiably explained by the feeling of relative ineffective sovereignty that owners of the university, apart from Fiji, have over the institution. Fiji’s actions in the saga, seen by the other owners of the university, as breaches of good governance, are initiatives that are difficult just to wish away. These can all be understood, but not necessarily appreciated nor condoned, through the political economy considerations of inter alia, dominant budgetary contributions to the institution. If another USP owner was in the same position as Fiji, the political economy considerations are still likely to apply.

USP can tick the Regionalism test, even if it is a sub-regional good. It meets a number of criteria listed thereunder, e.g. realization of economies of scale. It can also tick the Benefit test. I mentioned above gains in capacity building and regional integration.

USP would fail the Political oversight test – USP being a Council of Regional Organizations of the Pacific (CROP) agency. Thus, it has its own governance structure. PIF Leaders, therefore. have no scope in regulating the university. That is the jurisdiction of the USP Council.

In terms of Risk and sustainability test, USP is likely to get mixed results. The recent saga at the university and all it connotes is a downside. Its implementation plan, however, has ensured over fifty years of successful existence. In terms of funding, USP has developed a number of options. The 2015 report mentioned above noted the special line of funding that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) was extending to the university at the time. The line of credit to an institution instead of member government was innovative then. But there was more. ADB was willing to extend funding of mixed terms, soft loans including grants and the prospects of convertibility of loans to grants.

The funding arrangement speaks volumes of the university and its creditworthiness. This is likely to be pivotal in determining the direction USP may take, if and when the politics of the sub-regional institution necessitates taking a new turn.

The Duplication test needs qualification. There may not be another sub-regional university in the region; and this box can be ticked. However, the growth of national universities is likely to cast shadows on the finances and feasibility of sub-regional USP that may test its creditworthiness.

USP might have passed PIF’s Subsidiarity test in 1968. But that is history. The growth of national universities since then, as pointed out above, and despite their differences in their respective offerings of courses, can still contribute to USP’s unsustainability.  That will be added food for thought for taking a new turn.

Whither thou shall turn? From the regionality tests above, there is the proposition that because USP does not tick all the boxes, there may have been fortuitous structural and functional transformations of the institution over time. Therefore, the reference above to USP as being a quasi-public good was transitional and time specific. After the USP saga of recent days, the transformation may have been re-energized.

The prospect of USP being classified as a ‘club good’ may already have been reached. That is, whilst USP – the tertiary education provider – does not dwindle in supply as students consume it, it may however be already excluding some students due to congestion.

Such a reformulation of the university may not necessarily hasten big changes in the immediate terms. However, the mix of political economy considerations and ‘club’ myopia, intricately laced with local-level geopolitics, may just trigger nuances that may further undermine USP’s regionality that will cast a long shadow at Pacific regionalism.

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