To meet its aspiration of being an equal opportunity employer and bridging the gender divide, the Fiji National University (FNU) will commence publishing an Annual FNU Gender Report from this year.
FNU Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Healey revealed this while speaking at the International Women’s Day (IWD) celebrations held at FNU Nasinu Campus today.

According to Professor Healey, the comprehensive corporate gender report will give complete transparency to the proportion of staff at each rank, and it will also have a pay gender analysis by level.
“This will be a quite powerful way of really trying to embed the need for greater gender balance by actually forcing us to report the numbers,” said Professor Healey.

“It is extremely important that if we are going to take this issue seriously then instead of talking in just very generic terms about something must be done – we need to be honest with ourselves to publish the data and to be accountable for this data.”

VC Healey said this important step would also pave the way for identifying gaps or problems hindering the University’s ambitions of achieving gender equality.
“The report will be a great tool to track our progress and even be able to develop strategies in the areas that are problematic.”

“I strongly believe that this report is an example of international best practice that we should be learning from and adopting. So today we are committing to publishing the gender report.”
According to VC Healey, the University has done an initial analysis, however, it is working on a more comprehensive exploration of the staff data for the final report.

On a positive note, Professor Healey stated the current University staff data shows that gender balance has slightly improved between 2017 and 2019.

Meanwhile, the College of Humanities and Education (CHE) Associate Dean Research, Dr Zakia Ali-Chand challenged the female staff of the University to continue striving for progression in their careers.

“It is important to understand that this year we are also celebrating our 10th-anniversary, and some of us have been here for the last 10 years or more.”

“We need to ask ourselves – are we at the same place as we began in 2010, or has there been some progress in our careers. If we are at the same place as we were 10 years ago, then we can be left behind because FNU has moved on very fast, especially in the last four years.”
“The University is continuing to take giant strides as a leading higher education institution in Fiji and the Pacific. Therefore, there is a need for you to reflect on your journey to be on par with the University’s aspirations and goals,” Dr Ali-Chand added.

Graduate Women Fiji’s President, Maria Ronna Luna Pastorizo-Sekiguchi presented on the activities that GWF conducts to promote lifelong education, to improve the status of women and girls and to enable women to effect positive change for a peaceful world.

She acknowledged FNU’s continuous support in helping encourage young women to take up careers in fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The event was attended by University staff and students. A similar event was also held at FNU Natabua Campus in Lautoka.

FNU staff and students at International Women’s Day celebrations at Nasinu Campus.