By Tupuola Terry Tavita

The National University of Samoa was established in 1984 for two main reasons.

First is a university where Samoan culture is prioritized and, second and most importantly, a university to train and educate the aspiring youth of Samoa.

Aspiring youth, who one day, will be handed the reins of government and run the economy.

The recent move by the NUS council to cap student numbers because of pressure on existing facilities and resources, therefore, is not in line with that founding vision.

And it raises several questions. If the university now cannot cope with the influx of students, who is to blame?

What has the council being doing the past five years? How come they did not anticipate this student deluge? Did the university have a strategic plan like many other government institutions?

After all, if students are flooding to the university – hungry for knowledge – then that is great news. Because that is exactly why the university was set up in the first place.

And overcrowded classrooms at top universities are not new. Anyone who’s attended Auckland or Queensland Unis have had their share of parking down on the steps during lectures.

It is a given that as populations grow, so do student rolls at universities. Samoa is no different.

Universities then do two things. They expand their facilities and improvise existing ones.

We would like to point out there is an 1000-capacity gymnasium right in the middle of the Le Papaigalagala campus and a huge unused SCOPA hall next door. We therefore find it hard to believe that students are being turned away from smaller overcrowded lecture theatres at the national university.

A friend who went to Harvard University – probably the most renowned academic institution in the world – often describes how some of their lectures were held at the campus church.

There are three churches – the Vaivase and Toomatagi EFKS and a Latter Day Saints parish – within walking distance of the Le Papaigalagala campus. And what better way to learn than to have Jesus-on-the-cross and the Virgin Mary staring into your soul during a lecture?

May we also point out that, just across town at Alafua is the largely deserted University of the South Pacific’s Agriculture School.

Set up in the early 70s to train the farmers of the region, USP’s Alafua campus never reached any great heights. Member countries chose instead to set up their own home agriculture schools and did not send their students to Alafua.

Alafua though has top facilities including student dormitories, staff accommodation, laboratories, plenty of office space and recreational and sports facilities. Now why hasn’t NUS entered into an agreement with USP to utilize these largely unutilized facilities?

Is not partnerships and MOUs between universities the norm these days?

There is a desperate need for the university administrators to think outside the box.

NUS is not an institution upon itself nor does it exist in a vacuum. It was set up, intrinsically, to train the country’s workforce.

PRACTICAL SENSE

And branching out to Alafua makes a lot of practical sense. It will be most convenient for the growing settlements at Vaitele, Falelauniu and the greater Faleata area – where youths are agitating for education and the necessary qualifications that come with it, thus, securing a job.

We need not remind that there was once a time when university education was for a privileged few in this country. Today, education – at all levels – is a human right. As underscored by the United Nations Millennium Goals government is committed to achieving.

Culling numbers, upping tuition fees and raising the pass mark threshold to limit the university’s student roll – as has been suggested by the NUS administration – in essence, will return university education in this country to that privileged norm in the past none of us wants to go back to. It is a breach of human right.

With the current transitioning of district secondary schools to full college status, demand for placement at NUS will grow exponentially in the next few years.

The onus, therefore, is on NUS and its steering committee to accommodate this, expected, boom in student numbers.

If the current council can’t, then perhaps it’s time to bring in some fresh thinking.

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