Changing views of culture, learning, teaching, and knowledge : Fiji in-service primary teachers

This paper explores in-service primary teachers' views and beliefs about culture, learning, teaching and knowledge. Fifty Bachelor of Education in-service primary teachers at a university in Fiji participated in the study. The analysis reveals a mix of old and new beliefs about culture, learning teaching and knowledge. The influence of globalization of technology is a contributing factor towards changing views. To keep the indigenous epistemologies alive and valued like the Western epistemologies, more effort is needed to integrate these in formal education. This has implications for the future professional preparation of pre-service and in-service teachers.

Public sector auditing in Fiji:tracing its development and expansion

This paper examines the processes of public sector auditing, and its influence in Fiji over the period 1874-2003. Analyses of historical documents indicate that there were four major themes that influenced expansion of traditional auditing into performance auditing. This paper examines these. It also provides insights into the development of accountability practices as a result of changes in the Auditor-General's role. Conclusions drawn from the analysis indicate that traditional public sector auditing in Fiji expanded in accountability terms, possibly driven by public pressure through the media and elected representatives.

Introducing ICT to a primary school in a developing country : a Fijian experience

One aspect of quality education in the 21st century is the availability of digital resources in schools. Many developing countries need to build this capability – not just in terms of technology but teacher capability as well. One of the ways to achieve such capacity is through knowledge sharing between teachers and educators in developed and developing countries. Over time such collaboration can have a lasting impact on all participants on both sides of the digital divide. This paper reports on how such collaboration can occur. It focuses on the initial stages of a long-term initiative where our primary objective is to develop models, which demonstrate how we (in developed countries) can engage productively and meaningfully with schools in developing countries to build their ICT capacity. As part of this initiative, we introduced laptops and LEGO robotics tool kits to a rural primary school in Fiji. We developed ICT activities that aligned with the curriculum in a number of subjects. In addition, we worked with the teachers over two weeks to build their expertise.

Combining detached watchdog journalism with development ideals: An exploration of Fijian journalism culture

Development journalism has been a key focus of discussion among journalism scholars for around half a decade, but most of the attention has been firmly on African and Asian countries. This paper examines the situation on the little-researched island nation of Fiji, which has experienced considerable political instability since independence in 1970. Based on interviews with 77 of the country’s small population of just over 100 journalists, we find that journalism in Fiji exhibits similarities to Western journalism ideals, but also a significant development journalism orientation. A comparison with six other countries from the global South shows that this mix is not unique, and we argue that Western journalism approaches and development ideals are not by necessity mutually exclusive, as has often been argued. In this way, the article aims to contribute to a reassessment of our understanding of development journalism and how journalists in developing societies view their work.

Experimental studies on comparison of microwave curing and thermal curing of epoxy resins used for alternative mould materials

In this present work attempts have been made to study the glass transition temperature of alternative mould materials by using both microwave heating and conventional oven heating. In this present work three epoxy resins, namely R2512, R2515 and R2516, which are commonly used for making injection moulds have been used in combination with two hardeners H2403 and H2409. The magnetron microwave generator used in this research is operating at a frequency of 2.45 GHz with a hollow rectangular waveguide. In order to distinguish the effects between the microwave and conventional heating, a number of experiments were performed to test their mechanical properties such as tensile and flexural strengths. Additionally, differential scanning calorimeter technique was implemented to measure the glass transition temperature on both microwave and conventional heating. This study provided necessary evidences to establish that microwave heated mould materials resulted with higher glass transition temperature than the conventional heating. Finally, attempts were also made to study the microstructure of microwave-cured materials by using a scanning electron microscope in order to analyze the morphology of cured specimens.