Women teaching in the higher education sector in Fiji face a lot of challenges in making it to professor level.
The Fiji National University’s (FNU) annual report for 2020 said the percentage of female lecturers in all six campuses around Fiji dropped from 42.9 per cent in 2019 to 39.2 per cent in 2020.
According to the report, only 12.5 per cent of professors were women, 46.7 per cent were associate professors and 34.1 per cent were assistant professors.
This newspaper caught up with FNU’s acting vice-chancellor and the first itaukei woman to be appointed a professor at a university, Unaisi Nabobo-Baba as she shared an in-depth story of her journey through academia.
Originally from Vugalei Village in Tailevu, her teaching career spans over three decades, both locally and abroad.
Prof Nabobo-Baba’s education began in her village at Vugalei District School. However, after some time she decided she wanted change and enrolled at Nausori Primary School.
“I started with the local primary school but then I wasn’t happy,” she said.
“I wanted to go to a multiracial school because I always came first, so I went to Nausori Primary School.
“There were children of businessmen, and I took second place in my first year.”
She said that it was at that point that she realised that socioeconomic background or not having much in life was no excuse for being ignorant.
It was also during her primary years that her parents separated, and she was raised by her mother and grandmother in Tailevu.
While her mother, who was a teacher by profession, travelled around Fiji as part of her postings, Prof Nabobo-Baba said she stayed with her grandmother in the village.
“My maternal grandmother, Mereani Buikata Tuni is a really powerful woman, a local woman from a chiefly family. “She’s six feet tall and had only one child and that was my mother.
“My grandmother was the woman that influenced me.
“I’ve always said that I learnt the dignity of a woman or a man, equally important, from her because she wouldn’t allow anybody to bully her.” Prof Nabobo-Baba said her village upbringing was what moulded her into the woman she was today.
“I stayed with my mother’s mother in the village, she brought me up.
“It was a happy childhood and a lot of the things I liked then I still do now.
“Like eating natural foods, fruits and vegetables.
“My grandmother dives and so do I and it’s from growing up with a woman who demanded that what a man do, you do.
“I grew up among the type of people where the women dance like men, talk like men and work like men.”
After completing her primary education, she enrolled herself at Adi Cakobau School, which went against her parents wishes for her to attend either Lelean Memorial School (LMS) or Ballentine Memorial School (BMS).
However, after spending one week in Sawani, she finally gave in to her mother’s wishes and moved to BMS.
During her final year at BMS in 1980, she not only became the head girl but was also dux of the school.
“It was not easy to juggle leadership and education but part of the reason I was trying to get all the prizes was because of my mother’s people – they’re very hard people.
“Traditionally they are warriors so they kind of expect you to do well anywhere.”
She said attending a church school had a way of moulding one person, particularly with the community outreach programs they had for the students.
She said her experience at BMS was a good foundation for young women.
After finishing off at BMS, she enrolled into the University of the South Pacific in 1981 and completed her Bachelor of Arts and Graduate Certificate in Education studies, which was a doubled Degree in English and Geography.
While doing her undergraduate studies, she had the opportunity to represent the Pacific to Russia.
“I didn’t apply, I wasn’t going to because my mother struggled and I didn’t want to give her a headache because if I went I would have to buy a suitcase.
“But what happened, these three friends of mine from Labasa were the ones who pushed me to go.
“And I’m glad I did because the experience was such an eye-opener.”
After graduating, she volunteered to be a teacher at Queen Victoria School (QVS) in Tailevu in 1986, making her the first itaukei woman to teach at the allmale school. There she taught English, Geography and Social Science.
“The boys at QVS were so respectful and they were brilliant.
“At that time we had only 300 students and the students were largely sons of chiefs and managers and they were so respectful of the teachers and of knowledge.”
While at QVS, she asked if she could be transferred to a Suva school so she could further her studies at USP. She was subsequently transferred to Laucala Bay Secondary School (LBSS) in Suva.
Her time at LBSS taught her a lot about teaching, particularly when working with students from underprivileged backgrounds. Prof Unaisi said the contrast with QVS was “deafening”.
“It was different from QVS. “This time, those of us who taught forms six and seven, we had to fork money out from our own pockets.
“We provided afternoon tea for them to give them extra help.” Prof Nabobo-Baba said during their research, teachers found some students came from homes where they slept, ate, cooked, and did their homework all in the same space because their homes were small and without rooms.
She said her experience at LBSS taught her that teachers also needed to do remodelling of their work in order to serve the underprivileged or those without spaces. From LBSS, she was posted to Suva Grammar School (SGS) in Nasese.
“While in Grammar, they pulled 11 of us from the secondary school system to come and start the Fiji College of Advanced Education (FCAE) in 1992.
“It was an Australian project and Fiji was lacking teachers so some of us were put here and told to start teaching. “We were running to USP, and we were talking to our New Zealand partners to help us write the first curriculum for what is today, the School of Education.”
She taught for four years and helped develop the FCAE (now part of the Fiji National University) curriculum and also completed her Masters studies. She won a gold medal for her thesis in education and social sciences and in 1996 she took on a position at USP to lecture in Education and Pacific studies.
In 2001, she undertook her doctoral studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. While there, she also did part time lecturing at the University and became the co-director of the Research Unit of Pacific Education.
She also worked for a year at the Manukau Institute of Technology, where she was a lecturer in Business Communication and Introduction to Research. Prof Nabobo-Baba also did some part-time teaching at the Kip McGrath Education Centre where she taught English to students at senior high school.
In 2007, her PhD thesis and book “Knowing and Learning: An Indigenous Fijian Approach was recognised as a distinguished contribution to international and indigenous knowledge by the American Education Research Association.
After completing her doctorate degree, Prof Nabobo-Baba returned to USP in 2005 where she assumed the role of senior lecturer – Education until 2010.
It was in 2011 that she went far North of the Pacific and took up a position at the University of Guam (UOG) as tenured Professor of Education, making her the first indigenous Fijian woman to be appointed a professor at a university.
While here, Prof Nabobo-Baba taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Education, Research and Community Services. Aside from teaching, she also chaired the Institutional Review Board at the university, became the editor of the Micronesian Educator journal, was a member of the UOG President’s Good to Great Team, led a Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) team for research on social survey by the Australian Development Bank (ADB) in 2016, amongst many other roles.
Prof Nabobo-Baba also cochaired the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), one of six regional associations that accredits public and private schools, colleges, and universities in the United States.
“All this while I tried to run away from management because I knew if I went into management early, my academic ranking wouldn’t go as far as Professor – particularly for a woman.
“For a Pacific woman, there was no one around to emulate so I thought I’ll do the ranking first then I’ll do the management, even though I acted in between.
“That was a lesson I learnt from another professor because for a woman, it is not easy to make it to professor.”
After spending seven years in Guam, Prof Nabobo-Baba moved back to Fiji in 2017 and assumed her new role at FNU Lautoka campus as professor in Education. At present, she is the acting vice-chancellor at FNU. Prof Nabobo-Baba said that women find it harder to make it in the academic industry than men, particularly with their ranking.
“There’s a whole lot of social issues tied to women empowerment and enhancement, and nothing will happen unless and until we talk about it with our men and our women.
“I know girls who have very high IQ (intelligence quotient) and are scientists but cannot make up the academic rank because it’s about ‘going and getting’ and it means compromising a lot.
“There’s just a lot more other things going on in our lives as women that if we really have to make it in this space, some things have to be given up.
“Sometimes you don’t see your children grow up.” Prof Nabobo-Baba said for a person to succeed in life, they needed the right strategy but most importantly, the right friends around them.
