In addition to its main campus in Suva, Fiji, the University of the South Pacific has 12 extension centers throughout the islands of the South Pacific. Through this project, this year the University offered a total of four credit-bearing introductory and intermediate Japanese language courses for regular full-time students at the main campus, as well as short, intensive courses for the general public at its extension centers.
Focusing on business- and tourism-related Japanese and reading and writing skills, and offered in four levels of proficiency, the subjects available to full-time students were taken by 16 students in the first semester and 10 in the second. Twelve of the first-semester students passed the courses while all 10 passed in semester two. Intensive courses for the general public were conducted at extension centers in Nauru (5-17 July 1996) and the Cook Islands (4-17 December 1996), and attracted 47 and 34 students, respectively. Further progress was also made this year in compiling the textbook Basic Japanese, Stage 2, for use in a planned correspondence course.