The island nations of the Pacific are using the legal systems of their former colonial powers in conjunction with traditional customs as they engage in nation building. Putting in place their own legal systems and educating the public about them are important to the peace and stability of these relatively new states.
In this project the University of the South Pacific (USP), which has been offering distance education to Pacific islanders, aimed to provide high-quality educational materials and interactive classes for students in outlying areas who were enrolled in the School of Law. The School of Law developed a curriculum covering some 60 subjects for bachelor's and master's degrees and began offering it at the USP School of Law website, which was set up in 1998 at the USP Centre in Vanuatu (www.vanuatu.usp.ac.fj). Priority was also placed on website system development to enable professors and other teaching staff to freely manage course content with a little training. Active participation of students was made possible by setting up online discussion groups, chat groups, news services, and bulletin boards, all of which were offered on the website together with tests students can take to grade themselves.
The development of these online teaching aids facilitated the introduction of existing courses on law from Australia and New Zealand and enabled university resources to be used more effectively. In a bid to attract students from other regions of the world, the staff of the School of Law held talks with universities and related organizations in Britain, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the United States, and Vietnam. This resulted in students elsewhere being given the opportunity to learn about law in the Pacific island region.
During the three years of its development, this online course of the USP School of Law gained recognition as the "Vanuatu model" of distance education and sparked other such efforts within the university. On the main USP campus in Fiji, online courses based on this model have already been developed and put into use for preschool education, psychology, and training in Pacific island languages. The online law course also enabled the USP Centre in Vanuatu, which has only a small staff and few financial resources, to develop continuous and reliable instruction. Evidence of this is provided by enrolment at the center, which swelled from about 10 students to more than 100 students over the three-year period.
In relation to this project, the Japan International Cooperation Agency has been putting effort into capacity building in distance education, with its focus on USP's Fiji campus. The people involved in this work also give the Vanuatu model high marks, and they have plans to develop their own audiovisual teaching aids.