Developing Graduate Capabilities Beyond Technical Competence – Do Undergraduate Accounting Programmes Provide Adequate Support for the Workplace?

Since the late 1950s, numerous studies pointed out that the theory-practice gap in accounting is widening, expressing strong doubt on the survivability of tertiary accounting education. The objective of this study is to add clarifications by providing recent insights into the expectations of accounting graduates at the workplace and the emphasis placed by universities in developing graduate capabilities. Using an interpretive research approach, this study collects data from semi-structured interviews with accounting employers and early career graduates from diverse industry settings in Fiji. Document analysis of the undergraduate accounting curricula at the Fijian universities is undertaken to gauge expectation of accounting academics. The results from this study suggest that the accounting education programmes have been very responsive in trying to prepare students for changing workplace needs. While both employers and graduates acknowledged the significance of technical knowledge and non-technical skills, there is a gradual shift in demand for non-technical skills. This study used a purposive sampling technique to select the participants and as such the findings cannot be generalised. However, the findings and conclusions provide contextual arguments that tertiary accounting education do provide adequate workplace support to the students and all stakeholders need to recognise that graduate capabilities are developed over two different learning environments.

Developing Graduate Capabilities Beyond Technical Competence – Do Undergraduate Accounting Programmes Provide Adequate Support for the Workplace?

Since the late 1950s, numerous studies pointed out that the theory-practice gap in accounting is widening, expressing strong doubt on the survivability of tertiary accounting education. The objective of this study is to add clarifications by providing recent insights into the expectations of accounting graduates at the workplace and the emphasis placed by universities in developing graduate capabilities. Using an interpretive research approach, this study collects data from semi-structured interviews with accounting employers and early career graduates from diverse industry settings in Fiji. Document analysis of the undergraduate accounting curricula at the Fijian universities is undertaken to gauge expectation of accounting academics. The results from this study suggest that the accounting education programmes have been very responsive in trying to prepare students for changing workplace needs. While both employers and graduates acknowledged the significance of technical knowledge and non-technical skills, there is a gradual shift in demand for non-technical skills. This study used a purposive sampling technique to select the participants and as such the findings cannot be generalised. However, the findings and conclusions provide contextual arguments that tertiary accounting education do provide adequate workplace support to the students and all stakeholders need to recognise that graduate capabilities are developed over two different learning environments.

2018 Fiji Election Results: Patterns of Voting by Provinces, Rural-Urban Localities, and by Candidates

Akin to the previous, 2014 event, with no data on voter ethnicity, no exit polls, and few post-election analyses, the 2018 Fiji election results remain something of a mystery despite the fact that there had been a significant swing in voting in favour of Opposition political parties. There have been several studies about the election results, but most of them have been done without much quantitative analyses. This study examines voting patterns of Fiji’s 2018 election by provinces, and rural-urban localities, as well as by candidates, and also compares the 2018 and 2014 elections by spending a substantial time classifying officially released data by polling stations and individual candidates. Some of the data are then further aggregated according to the political parties to which those candidates belonged. The current electoral system in Fiji is a version of a proportional system, but its use is rare and this study will provide an interesting case study of the Open List Proportional System. At the end of the analyses, this study considers possible reasons for the swing in favour of the Opposition.

Suva Residents’ Views on Cancer, Diabetes and HIV in The Fiji Times

The burden of preventable diseases is increasing in the South Pacific Island Countries and Territories. In Fiji, significant media attention and national finances are spent on public dissemination of the modifiable risk factors of chronic illnesses. However, little is known about lay societal perceptions of chronic illnesses and of people living with these illnesses. This preliminary study takes an area-situated approach to lay knowledge and examines Suva residents’ moral evaluations associated with socially significant health concerns in Fiji. Using the case studies of HIV, cancer, and diabetes, the research employs content analysis to examine 144 Suva residents’ Letters to the Editor, published between 2000 and 2019 in The Fiji Times. The findings indicate that letter writers on chronic illnesses are power sensitive, interested in governmental responsibility, and aware of the role of stigma in creating inequitable health outcomes. The study’s findings locate chronic illness as not only a medical responsibility but also a social justice and human rights concern that requires a multisectoral approach, with community-tailored responses at the heart of all discussions. The lay-societal recognition of the three illnesses as being socially relevant suggests grassroots support for policies directed towards structural reforms for the prevention and management of these illnesses.

Religion and the New Media: Discourses and Debates in the 2018 Fiji General Election Campaign

This article explores discourses and debates on secularism, religion, and politics in social media in connection with the 2018 Fiji general election campaign, and in interviews with leading figures in churches and religious organisations. It discusses how people responded to these issues. It shows that there is still a pervasive lack of clarity in the Fijian population as to what the terms Christian state, secular state, secularism, and secularisation mean, how people understand, discuss, and debate them, and how this lack of clarity was used politically during the campaign.

A Residential Satisfaction Assessment of Public Rental Board Housing in the Greater Suva Urban Area, Fiji Islands

Residential satisfaction is an important measure of overall quality of life and determines how individuals respond to their housing environment. The study examines the level of tenants’ satisfaction with Public Rental Board (PRB) flats in the Greater Suva Urban Area (GSUA), Fiji. The objective of the study is to investigate the factors affecting the residential satisfaction of tenants of PRB rental flats using a survey instrument measuring tenants’ perceptive responses to the various facets of their housing environment. The study finds that PRB tenants have relatively higher satisfaction level for the building quality features and neighbourhood factors, whilst lower satisfaction level is recorded for the building physical design and housing management services. Physical building design features such as the size of bedrooms, dining areas, together with housing management features such as handling of tenant’s complaints, and treatment of tenants, have been rated by tenants to be below satisfactory levels. The factorial ANOVA on the survey data indicates that there are no statistically significant differences in residential satisfaction levels attributed to independent variables such as age, education level, and family type. However, residential satisfaction levels were statistically different among the six PRB estates examined in the study.

Opportunities and Challenges of Implementing the International Valuation Standards in Fiji

In the face of globalisation and changing economies property valuation, standards have evolved immensely over the years with the majority of the countries – including small pacific island nations – adopting internationally recognised valuation standards. Smaller nations’ attraction to this change is understandable given it enhances users’ confidence in the reports, especially foreign users who have or are looking to make significant investments in the country. However, the data infrastructure and technical expertise in these countries differ significantly from the larger countries that were involved in the design of these standards. This raises the question of whether the International Valuation Standards can be effectively implemented in smaller, Pacific nations. This paper aims to contribute to this discussion by highlighting three key categories of challenges faced by property valuation firms in Fiji, and then discussing how addressing these issues presents an opportunity for the valuation field to implement the International Valuation Standards more effectively, resulting in better property valuation practices.