The mandatory Ethics and Governance courses in Fiji’s universities: institutional ecologies, teaching philosophies and the (ethical) future of tertiary education in the Pacific

Abstract

For the last 15 years and across Fiji’s three universities, over 40,000 students have completed mandatory courses in Ethics and Governance. Emerging from growing perceptions of graduate misconduct, Fiji’s 2006 ‘clean-up’ military coup and corporate scandals from Enron to the Fiji National Bank, these courses explore personal, political and corporate governance and topics ranging from religion, human rights, cultural relativism and gender, to the environment, business ethics, personal integrity and the meaning of work. This article reports on intra-university contests regarding the merits, costs, values and efficacy of these courses. Frequently mischaracterised as moral instruction, and ineffective at producing the ‘good employee’, some courses have been replaced with program-specific professional ethics courses. The andragogic philosophy of these courses, however, targets moral autonomy and ethical literacy, skills aimed more for the ‘good citizen’. Whether the remaining mandatory, holistic Ethics courses continue may depend on what student outcomes Fiji’s universities prioritise most.