Academics warn of ‘toxic’ atmosphere damaging the region’s largest university
Growing discord within the ranks of the University of the South Pacific ( USP ) escalated further this month with the summary dismissal of a mid-career academic. With USP’s two unions having already voted to go on strike in March this year over what they claimed to be unresolved pay and staffing issues, the dismissal of Dr Tamara Osborne-Naikatini has added more fuel to the fire. Her PhD students added their voices to the heightening chorus of discontent at the University as staff voted to go on strike demanding Vice- Chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia’s removal.
Aisha Azeemah reports that with Fiji’s education ministry being asked to intervene, there is now a growing sense that the USP Council, as the governing body of the regionally funded body, needs to act. Senior academics, as well as sources from within the Council have told Islands Business that the situation at USP is becoming toxic.
Loggerheads
When Dr Tamara Osborne-Naikatini stepped into the role of Acting President of the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) in January this year, she had been with USP for 12 years, and was Lecturer in the discipline of Biological and Chemical Sciences. She had also been Discipline Coordinator since mid-2023. She was elected to the position of President at the union annual general meeting in April.
At that point, AUSPS and the Administration and Support Staff Union had already been at loggerheads with the University for a year. Citing the management dragging its feet over a growing number of vacancies and the subsequent workload on staff, as well as unresolved salary grievances, both unions voted via secret ballot to go on strike in March.
Within a few weeks of the strike vote, Osborne-Naikatini found herself directly in the line of fire. She was accused of “gross misconduct” for speaking to Islands Business about the details of the Council’s process in granting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia a new, two-year contract at the Council’s meeting last November. The University claimed she had breached the confidentiality of the USP Council by publicly sharing sensitive information. She was notified of the allegations in late April.
In July, she was handed a notice of summary dismissal, throwing her into the centre of a new controversy gripping the University.
Her students launched an online campaign petitioning for her reinstatement, gaining almost 500 signatures from students, staff and others.
They asked management to consider the impact of her removal on the wider Pacific landscape.
According to the petitioners, there is a dire need for experts from the Pacific in biology, ecology and related sciences, to further the students’ goals and preserve local and regional ecosystems. Despite each of these early-career researchers having access to multiple experts, they say that Osborne-Naikatini, as a Pacific Island technical expert, is the backbone of their efforts.
A representative of the group said: “Do we have specialist students, Pacific Island graduates? Those of us who plant, uproot and eat that crop ourselves and understand the importance of our research aims in preserving that plant. That’s the important thing. We need those kinds of people.
“I do not doubt the knowledge of the other people on my supervisory team. But that is the beauty of having a principal supervisor who’s a Pacific Island expert,” the representative said. “Even when we run the data, we can follow all the steps online. But does that make ecological truth on the ground? Is this result true for Fiji? Is this true for Tonga? That is the thing that only a Pacific Island biologist or ecologist can verify; somebody who knows the plants and animal species. That’s why we all go to her.
“As Discipline Coordinator, Tamara consistently met with specialists, regional NGOs, local NGOs, SPC, Nature Fiji, and she would align our courses to the output that the region currently needs to answer that call for the regional agenda.”
The petition says that as the Discipline Coordinator, she oversaw 20 courses across regional USP campuses, while also supervising 12 postgraduate students in the Master’s and PhD programs.
“Her abrupt removal has left students without the essential guidance and support needed to complete their programs. Given the already severe shortage of qualified staff in the School of Agriculture, Geography, Environment, Oceans, and Natural Sciences (SAGEONS), this decision affects students across the entire School. Her position as the Chair of the Biodiversity and Conservation group has put a halt on the approvals of all Master’s and PhD proposals,” the petition reads.
“Dr Tamara is the backbone of my national research efforts to pave a pathway for freshwater ecology in the South Pacific region,” wrote one student. “Her abrupt termination has handicapped me academically to continue with my studies to the point that I have taken a semester hiatus.”
“The crisis this has caused on the ground for us is huge,” another student told Islands Business. “I do research because I have a sense of responsibility towards my country and my region. And this is why we need new biology conservation graduates, who will become the people to implement the regional research agenda on the ground.”
The group reportedly sought help from the student association but, receiving no response from them, have resolved to trying to push the matter up to the USP Council. They also plan to write to Fijian Education Minister, Aseri Radrodro.
A former, long-standing staff member of the University who has worked under several Vice-Chancellors, agreed with the students’ concerns.
“The decision to sack her is an extreme one to say the least, and it is definitely not in the best interest of USP,” he told Islands Business. “USP staff unions must be resolute, as they have been, in demanding the immediate re-employment of Dr Tamara Osborne-Naikatini, who has an unblemished 12-year record as a biology lecturer and supervisor and student mentor.
“The students are crying out for her return.”
Questionable process
Osborne-Naikatini is alleged to have breached confidentiality contrary to her contract of employment, specifically clause 17.3 of the USP Staff Code of Conduct Policy, and clauses 4.2 and 4.4 of the USP Code for Professional Conduct for Academic Staff.
Clause 17.3 of the Staff Code of Conduct Policy states that, “It is acknowledged that staff members and associates may be granted access to confidential or sensitive information in their roles at the University. Staff members and associates have a responsibility to maintain the integrity, security and confidentiality of that information, exercise good judgment and discretion and comply with any University policies and procedures or statutory obligations in relation to that information.”
Clauses 4.2 and 4.4 of the Code for Professional Conduct state that in dealings with the University, academic staff should, “not disclose confidential information on University matters without good cause,” and “abide by the terms of the agreed contract of employment unless there are extenuating and just circumstances to the contrary,” respectively.
Osborne-Naikatini is said to have breached these clauses by speaking to Islands Business about the outcome of a Council vote regarding the reappointment of Vice-Chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia. The information was published in the March 2024 edition of Islands Business, in an article titled, ‘Where is USP heading amid a gathering storm?’
While her comments to Islands Business were made in her capacity as President of the staff union, a position that some USP staff members claim should have offered her exemption from policies against revealing internal information to media, USP management claims that the sensitive information she shared was only known to her in her capacity as a member of the Joint Committee of Council and Senate, and was part of a “confidential session”.
Osborne-Naikatini herself says the allegations against her were formalised on the precipice of the union calling out what they believed to have been a questionable nomination process for the professorial representatives on the University’s Council.
According to USP statutes, the Council must include two professors at the University appointed by the University Senate. Osborne-Naikatini said that earlier this year, she received information that there might have been a questionable nomination process for the two professorial seats on Council. She raised the issue at the following Senate meeting.
“In preparation for that meeting, we submitted a letter to the Chair of Senate, and sent the same letter to the Chair of Council, expressing our concerns over what seemed to be a nomination process that was muddied, I guess you could say,” she said.
“It was obvious that there was a push to have Council representation that would be in support of Ahluwalia.
“The end effect of me standing up in the Senate was [I think it was just the week after, perhaps two weeks after] that, I received the first letter [regarding the accusation of misconduct].”
Dr Sudesh Mishra
“If you create an atmosphere that is toxic, something has to give. No one wants USP to go under, but we are not in capable hands and it’s delusional to pretend otherwise.”
Whistleblowing
Ahluwalia himself had spoken out against mismanagement and governance issues within the University early in his first term as the Vice-Chancellor, in a series of actions that kicked up immense support from staff and students.
According to Osborne-Naikatini, the unions not only stood in Ahluwalia’s defence when the Fijian government at the time deported him in 2021 but also provided him support prior to the information becoming public.
“He had access to Council members through members of the union, through [their] contacts, that he wouldn’t have had access to [otherwise]. He wouldn’t have been able to lobby the support that he needed to lobby if it hadn’t been the support of the people, the University members, staff members, who stood up and said, ‘We’re not going to let this happen. We’re going to do something about it’. So, because of that support, he managed to get some support amongst the Council members, because he was still quite new then.”
Despite the deteriorating relationship between Ahluwalia and the unions since, Osborne-Naikatini maintains that the unions supported him because of what they considered to be in USP’s best interests.
“We had to do something,” she said. “We had to stand up and say, ‘No, you can’t treat our VC, whoever the VC is, you can’t treat our VC like that. We will fight for that person, whoever that person is’. And I think that’s something that we will proudly say even now.”
She said if her decision to raise the union’s concerns about the appointment process to the Council was anything similar to whistleblowing, she was unable to find pathways through the University’s whistleblower policy and procedures.
According to USP’s ‘Protected Disclosures & Whistleblowing Policy’ allegations against “any Council Member, including the Vice-Chancellor” are to be dealt with “under the procedures defined by the USP Council,” but the document does not go into detail about such procedures.
By contrast, the whistleblower procedures of the Fiji National University (FNU) state that, “When Wrongful Conduct is alleged against the Chairperson of FNU Council, or any Chair and/or member of FNU Council, the person disclosing may disclose the activity to the Minister responsible for tertiary education”.
Many universities will also appoint what is known as a ‘visitor’: an external authority who handles disputes and allegations within a university when internal procedures have either been exhausted with no resolution or are deemed inappropriate for a particular matter. Allegations against the highest-ranking members of a university’s governance could potentially be reported to the ‘visitor’.
The charter and statutes of the University of the South Pacific both mention the position of ‘visitor’, but this position has reportedly been vacant for several years.
While there are no official procedures that outline a role for regional governments to become involved in such a matter, Fiji’s Ministry of Education has taken notice of the situation.
Fiji is the largest funder of USP among the 12 member countries, with a FJ$33.5 million (US$14.75 million) allocation in the 2024-2025 national Budget and a FJ$32.3 million(US$14.22 million) contribution in 2023. Now Fiji’s Minister for Education, Aseri Radrodro has made a statement in Parliament expressing his concern at the impending strike.
“Government is aware of the concerns raised given that USP has around 75% of staff who are Fiji citizens working at the University,” Radrodro told Parliament’s sitting on August 7.
“There are a lot of issues that have been raised, in particular, the strike threat, and we also understand that the staff that has been terminated has taken the matter to the Employment Ministry.
“Given the background that I’ve just alluded to, it is my intention to try and resolve the issues that have been raised for the welfare of the Fijian staff and their concerns, by calling a special meeting of the University to address the issues that have been highlighted regarding termination and strike threats.”
Radrodro, however, acknowledged that the USP Council is “the executive governing body of the University. The Council makes ordinance to direct and to regulate the University and its authorities and members,” Radrodro said.
The role of Council
Osborne-Naikatini’s dismissal is the latest episode in a steadily escalating row between the unions and Ahluwalia over the past 18 months.
The unions claim a Council meeting in May last year directed Ahluwalia to begin discussions with the unions on their demands for a pay rise and a new Vice-Chancellor – and to bring the outcomes to the Council’s November sitting.
But the unions earlier told Islands Business that Ahluwalia never called for any discussions with them, and when they tried to present the issue at the November meeting, the item was blocked from the agenda, eventually resulting in the vote in March this year for strike action.
Claiming there were skyrocketing expenses to the University from him continuing to work from offshore in Samoa, even though the new Fiji Government had removed a ban on him by the former administration, they called for the termination of his employment last November.
Again, this year, both unions prepared a joint paper they said was aimed at alerting the USP Council to the “deeper issues” that relate to the “reputation, security, and future” of the University. Alleging a 90% increase in an expense account that was created for Ahluwalia since 2021 when he was deported from Fiji, the report also detailed increased daily per diems for Suva this year that were 43% higher than United Nations rates.
Citing additional factors such as USP losing close to 5000 full-time students between 2021 and 2024, its student completion rates dropping to 18% in 2021, and student retention rates dropping to 67% in 2022, the unions once again demanded Ahluwalia’s removal.
Alongside the increasing concerns from the unions over the University’s performance, there have been calls from within the Council itself to make the governing body more accountable to the regional governments that contribute financially to the running of USP.
Islands Business has been reliably informed that in an unprecedented development, calls were made at its meeting in May for the Council to report back regularly to regional governments on key performance areas, to upscale accountability to the Pacific Island states.
Veteran USP academic, Professor Sudesh Mishra’s association with the University has spanned multiple vice chancellors. Mishra told Islands Business that USP’s problems can only be resolved by the Council.
“I think we tend to bring into positions of power people who, one, don’t understand the region, and two, they are not there for the right reasons; that is, to promote excellence in teaching and research,” Mishra said. “And they are not able to create a culture where people are working in a harmonious manner, enjoying the work, loving it even, and getting along.
“I’m a member of the staff union. I’ve been in meetings where people have expressed their disappointment with the state of USP. The kind of divisive politics presently in operation at this university – I think no one is very happy about that.
“The fact that in excess of 90% of unionised staff [in the first vote for strike action by union members in March] are unhappy with the senior management is an indication that there is something deeply wrong at USP. The people who are supposed to be managing our affairs are not doing a good job of it. If you can’t understand the sense of despair felt by the staff you’re supposed to be managing, if you choose not to address that, if you can’t empathise, you shouldn’t be in the job.
“The overwhelming sense of discontent has to be addressed by the USP Council,” Mishra said. “This is not a problem I or my peers have created. It has been created by the Council. And it is the responsibility of the Council to find a solution. And very urgently because we are losing staff, especially good regional staff. The University is founded on a particular vision for the Pacific region, which includes training and retaining our best thinkers and innovators, who will then go on to train our students to be the best thinkers and innovators in the region. This involves drawing on regional knowledge, practices and resources. That’s the logic of the whole enterprise.”
When asked if recent issues had caused him to consider leaving the University, Mishra responded: “I think if you poison a pond, the frog is bound jump out to survive. And this is not just my feeling. I think it’s the general opinion at USP. We have lost valuable people, and everyone I speak to wants out. And that’s very, very sad, if you think about it.
“If you create an atmosphere that is toxic, something has to give. No one wants USP to go under, but we are not in capable hands and it’s delusional to pretend otherwise.”
There are other regional academics, however, who stand with USP management’s decision in firing Osborne-Naikatini.
“USP is a very credible organisation, with well-established rules, processes and procedures, as well as seasoned managers,” former Vice-Chancellor of Solomon Islands National University and of Fiji National University, Dr Ganesh Chand told Islands Business.
“I believe that their decisions are bound to be well considered ones.”
Chand also believes that despite the differences in the procedures between USP and FNU for reporting misconduct—the whistleblowing procedures for the latter having been drafted by Chand while he was FNU VC himself—breaches of policy should not be justified by these differences.
Chand adds: “Fiji’s Employment Act is clear on grievance mechanisms. There is nothing stopping an employee in any organisation, including USP, to resort to that.
“The ‘Visitor’ provision does not prevent a grievance to be filed as per the Employment Act; where there is no ‘Visitor’, an employee can go to mediation provisions under the Act,” he said.
Barred from speaking
USP recently launched its Centre for Sustainable Futures, a hub for regional climate change research.
Following that launch, Ahluwalia requested discussions with each USP School regarding the initiative. Some staff members had hoped to use the face-to-face sessions with the VC to address recent issues directly, but attendees said staff were barred from speaking on anything but the Sustainable Futures project.
“The Q&A session seemed like it was controlled and limited to only the topic of the day when there were much bigger issues that staff felt like they needed to ask about and address,” said one attendee.
“Particularly when the moderator mentioned that any other question or issues to be addressed to the VC are to be done individually at another time.”
One grievance, the unions raised in their joint report for the Council in May, was that a staff survey through which staff are able to raise issues about the University’s administration, has not been held since 2017. They said since 2021, the Council, along with development partners Australia and New Zealand, have been enquiring about its status.
“At last year’s May Council, it was brought up again, but no action has been taken. Management’s excuse is “the huge cost of $60,000” to conduct the survey, the union report said.
Ahluwalia and his management team have consistently refused to respond to queries from Islands Business so far this year. When we reached out to Ahluwalia’s office once again for a response to this report, his office responded to a third email from us, with a one-line reply: “Please note that the University will not discuss staff contractual matters with third parties.”
