Josefa Sigavolavola 
Higher Education Commission of Fiji Director Eci Naisele. [Photo: FILE]
The Higher Education Commission has responded to concerns over the sharp reduction in funding for Pacific Polytech, whose allocation dropped from $7 million to $500,000.
While expressing disbelief, Polytech Chair Dr Ganesh Chand pointed to the institution’s role in addressing Fiji’s skills gap.
“It’s a drain on our foreign exchange. The number of TVET graduates before Polytech was as low as 777; these are official figures from institutions, 777 per year, say 800, less than 1000, while we need 8000. Polytech came in; the numbers started rising.”
Commission Director Eci Naisele said the grant was guided by a formula mandated by the Education Ministry and applied consistently across all non-tertiary institutions.
“As I said, it’s just unfortunate that some of our institutions, apparently, are no longer reaching that because we’ve been tasked to establish this formula.”
Naisele added that previous allocations were based on baselines, but the new formula distributes funds according to criteria such as teaching, learning, equity, performance, and employability.
“Baselines are basically what they received in the past years, but the criteria remain the same as per the one in the regulation and also as per the one I mentioned: teaching, learning, equity, performance, research at institutional-based. For example, in terms of employability rate, there’s a slight increase from the original baseline that they received in the past years.”
The situation has raised wider concerns about Fiji’s growing skills shortage, with reduced funding for local training likely to increase reliance on foreign workers and drive up costs for taxpayers.
