University of the South Pacific

The University of the South Pacific (USP), which ranks 3rd on our list of best universities in Samoa, is a public research university with campuses in a dozen Oceanian countries. The institution was founded in 1968 and is owned by the governments of 12 Pacific island countries: the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. With over 30,000 students in 2017, USP is an international center for teaching and research on Pacific culture and environment. The main campus of the university is in Suva, Fiji, with satellite campuses in each member country.

Colin Aikman was the university's first Vice-Chancellor when it opened on February 5, 1968. Initially, instruction was restricted to introductory courses, which were equivalent to the New Zealand School Certificate and University Entrance. Degree programs began in 1969, with multidisciplinary courses offered by a school of natural resources, a school of education, and a school of social and economic development. On December 2, 1971, the first graduation ceremony was held, with 49 students earning degrees, diplomas, and certificates.

The university began creating regional extension centers in the 1970s to provide continuing education, correspondence, and extramural courses. It also began to argue for Pacific regionalism and to take on a distinct "Pacific flavor," with Vice-Chancellor James Maraj saying that the institution should become "really a university of the Pacific peoples." It created the Institute of Pacific Studies in 1976, led by Professor Ron Crocombe, to increase students' understanding of Pacific identity and the region. Over the next two decades, the institute published over 2000 Pacific authors' work. Every USP undergraduate program still includes a foundation course in Pacific studies.

The government of Western Samoa leased the South Pacific Regional College of Tropical Agriculture in Alafua to the university in 1977 in order to construct an agricultural school. It is now the Alafua campus of the university. It established the Emalus Campus in Vanuatu in 1989, which has housed the university's law school and the Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute since 1996.

Location: Apia, Samoa
Website: www.usp.ac.fj
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/USPSamoaCampus/