Page 29 - IB May 2021

Education Education

rather than sending them to Fiji. Professor Pounder said he hoped there can be more flex-
“We’ve upped our game there. We have to provide more ibility in the future, as the concept of a ‘book only’ allowance
learning and teaching support. We have to provide a lot of is a thing of the past, and students really do need access to
IT support as well,” he said, while acknowledging continuing digital devices.
challenges with campuses reliant on satellite (rather than Prior to COVID, FNU already had a program for blended
submarine cable connections) such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, Nauru, learning (both face to face and online). Nonetheless, Profes-
Niue and Tokelau. sor Pounder said the university faculty had to upskill quickly,
Dr Hayward says learning analytics has been another area with the FNU’s flexible and e-learning team facilitating online
in which USP has improved. “We discovered that we could use refresher programs.
Moodle, the online teaching platform, to really understand a “The success of online or blended learning depends very
lot about our students’ activity.” He says while the level of much on what we would call teacher presence. Even if the
engagement was much higher than they anticipated, it meant teacher is just sort of posing questions here and there, like
they could see if students were, for example, having difficulty the Socratic method. It’s not a case of telling the students,
accessing video material. ‘this is what the answer is’, it’s a case of enabling them to get
Professor Vanualailai said it also meant they could support to an answer themselves, by the way you pose the question.
students who might have financial or other difficulties, as a That’s a skill.”
lack of engagement could trigger a call from the call centre. “It’s a very, very time consuming process actually. You can’t
USP has instituted a number of other pastoral care mea- get away with just posting your PowerPoints online, and a few
sures to support students since the outbreak of the pandemic. lecture notes, and expect them to get on with it. You have to
Fee payments can be staggered throughout the year. Student have a presence.”
counselling and disability resource services are both available FNU sought to ensure none of its students were left behind
online and through toll-free numbers. Students who failed during last year’s lockdowns, so over the summer break,
courses in the first semester of last year will not have the makeup courses and intensives were offered.
failing grade added to their academic transcripts. And for a Professor Pounder said at one point, some students were
period last year, USP negotiated with telecom providers to looking for tuition discounts, an argument that from his per-
give students free access/data when they logged onto the USP spective, doesn’t hold water. “That went to the idea of, well
website. we should get a discount because we’re not getting face to
Dr Hayward said 89% of students surveyed said they were face teaching. And my argument when I was sitting in the VC’s
satisfied with their revised courses at the end of semester one office, was no, because it’s more labour intensive. It’s not an
last year, which is actually higher than normal. easy option for a faculty, it’s actually more labour intensive.”
“Those numbers really reassured us that that kind of re- Professor Pounder is finishing his term at FNU, but believes
sponsive method we’re taking… that we’ve had been effec- there is big potential in the FNU Online platform. A course
tive.” on entrepreneurship FNU Online offered last year had 700
Less than 5% of the student population deregistered from signups, with three-quarters of those completing the course
their courses last year, and USP’s admissions rose by 11% this either through meeting attendance requirements, or going on
year. “We want to ensure that some of those measurements to develop a business plan. Professor Pounder says while the
like student pass rates, retention rates are maintained, but course was offered free of charge and targeted people who
not only that, we also want to be vetted externally. We have had lost their jobs, it’s a growth area.
submitted a set of data to an organization that looks at the “The TSLB has got less money. So there’s less scholarships
effectiveness of online learning. It is called the WURI ranking, for students and so on. The universities are tight in terms of
or vetting system,” Professor Vanualailai said. budgets and so on. But you know, there’s a growing opportu-
“Then we can move to the competitive analysis, we can nity to have these online courses, short courses.”
say that we are in the right direction. So, we submitted one There are no courses currently available in FNU Online,
whole set of data to this WURI organization last year, and however the university has just launched two online training
we’re waiting for the outcome.” programmes to support students taking Higher Degrees by
At the Fiji National University which had more than 18,600 Research. The first is aimed at academic researchers, and the
students in 2019 (a considerable number of them from outside second is designed to enhance the skills of Higher Degree by
Fiji), it was also evident last year that many students did not Research candidates.
have access to the Internet, or a device to do their work on. “I am particularly pleased that, despite the closure of
Pro Vice Chancellor Learning and Teaching, Professor James FNU campuses due to the current restrictions, we were able
Pounder said the university tried to convince Fiji’s Tertiary to launch the two programmes virtually. This is a sign of
Scholarship and Loans Board (TSLB) to allow students to use our ongoing commitment to support our students and staff,
their book allowance to acquire a laptop or tablet, “but that whatever the challenges,” said Vice-Chancellor Professor Toby
didn’t work, because they’ve got all sorts of rules and regula- Wilkinson at this month’s launch.
tions around what can be used, what the money can be used
for and so on. So it became such a torturous negotiation that editor@islandsbusiness.com
we decided to pull out from that.”

Islands Business, May 2021 29