A $7MILLION allocation to Pacific Polytechnic Ltd (trading as Polytech) in this year’s National Budget has raised some eyebrows across Fiji.
From $1m in the 2023-2024 national budget, $5m in the 2024-2025 budget, and now $7m, this, along with the decreased allocation for some longstanding institutions like Fiji National University (FNU), has brought the four-year-old institution under the spotlight.
But according to Polytech chairman Ganesh Chand, the $7m wasn’t even half of the funds that they had requested for in their submission for the 2025-2026 budget to meet their needs in terms of providing technical training to Fijians.
Background
Polytech was established on March 11, 2021, as a non-profit company by former staff of the Technical College of Fiji (TCF). These are staff who were left redundant after FNU discontinued the TCF courses because of low demand for TCF programs.
Mr Chand told this newspaper that about 20 of the redundant staff came to him and asked if he could help them. After exhausting all possible avenues of assistance, they finally decided to set up Pacific Polytech Ltd.
“At that time, it was the other government, so we made proposals to them on what we were doing, what we intended to do, and that government took our ideas, but didn’t give us any money,” Mr Chand said.
“We were operating on a small time basis. Short courses, carpentry, technical training, and all that. But the ideas that they pinched from us became what is known as micro qualifications.
“Then, of course, the government changed, and this Government realised the value of technical training.”
He said what began as a solution for displaced educators had now become a pathway for skill development and employment for Fijian youth.
The institution currently operates in 14 locations with plans to open centres in more areas.
Offered courses
Polytech offers three distinct program types: micro qualifications, award programs, and short courses.
The micro qualification model allows students to complete modular training that can be accumulated over time, and over the past three years, more than 3000 students have graduated under this program.
For award programs, approximately 1600 to 1800 have completed certificate and diploma programs.
Mr Chand said an additional 2000 students were currently training under these three programs.
Employment integration and success
Mr Chand claimed surveys conducted last year revealed 56 per cent of graduates find employment within three months, with the figure rising to 66 per cent within a year.
The majority of graduates are employed in the trade, hospitality, and service sectors, but the institution’s leadership emphasised that qualification alone is insufficient.
Mr Chand said all programs offered were internationally recognised through the Fiji Higher Education Commission, ensuring graduates can seek opportunities both locally and internationally.
However, he said finding attachment opportunities for students before they graduate was a challenge, not only faced by them but other tertiary institutions as well, and Polytech is working on ways to address this.
Financial landscape and government support
Mr Chand said as a non-profit company, Polytech was backed by a guarantee, with initial funding coming from personal investments and anonymous donors.
The total startup investment was less than half a million dollars, and then support came in from the Government. Support, which the institution argues is still insufficient to cater for the number of students they have and the expenses that come with educating students under the technical programs they offer.
He said the $7m budget covers 200 staff across 14 locations, including salaries, rent, utilities, and essential consumables, but they’ll have to reduce their number of student intake this financial year because the $7m was not enough.
“It’s too low for the number of people we are training. We’re training thousands of students. Our submission was more than double that, and we only got $7m.”
Mr Chand said teaching trade took a lot of consumables, something that “is least understood in Fiji”.
He said a typical trade course might need students to practice with real materials – eggs for cookery, timber for construction, or welding rods for metalwork.
“Firstly, for students to gain competency, they have to work on it over and over and over again until they can do it, until they become competent.
“Secondly, in universities, you can have large classes, 200 students. You can’t do that here. You have to have a small number, and the number is 25, ideally. That’s what our target is — 25 per trainer. You have to have more people teaching, and that’s expensive.
“Then you have to have tools and equipment. You see, for example, in banking and finance, all that you need is a computer or laptop, paper, and a projector.
“In trades, you need all sorts of tools, cutting, welding, mixing, all these kinds of things, and that’s expensive.
“So, trades training is far more expensive than degree training.”
On average, 12 per cent of the budget goes towards consumables, with some courses requiring even more.
When asked on why he thinks Polytech received more funding than other institutions like Navuso Agricultural Technical Institute ($2,739,000), Centre for Appropriate Technology and Development (CATD) in Nadave ($920,544), and others, Mr Chand argued that no other institution in Fiji is effectively providing technical skills training at the scale and quality that Polytech is doing.
“Who is doing that in Fiji? That’s the question to ask. Is there anyone before even 2021 who was doing it?
“If there is someone doing it, why would we be wasting our time and money here?
“Polytech is the only one and is doing it successfully.
“Our smallest centres are in Bua and Natewa Bay. They are our smallest; the number of students there is more than how many they have at Navuso.
“Our smallest locations have more students than Nadave.”
He said this was probably why they receive more funding than the other trade institutions around Fiji.
Alleged political affiliation
When asked if the allocations and the Government’s support had anything to do with his alleged friendship with the Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad, Mr Chand said he talks to everybody in the Government.
“Deputy Prime Minister is from NFP (National Federation Party), and I am the founder of the Labour Party, but I do not have any political affiliation with anybody.
“I talk to all ministers, but politically we’re miles apart.”
He said personal interactions should not be misinterpreted as political alignment. “We talk to everyone, and so anyone who says that, doesn’t know me.”
