After full approval of the Council and Executive board and the Higher Education Commission of Fiji, the endorsements of many partners, and the prayers of the Pasifika Household of God, a new Methodist university is opening in Fiji. The Pazifika Communities University (PCU) will be celebrating this historical moment from the 28th of April to the 1 May. This moment has been in preparation for more than 60 years and builds on the 60 years of existence of Pacific Theological College (PTC) as a regional educational institution that is now being recognized and accredited as university.
The Pacific Theological College (PTC) was founded in 1961, and established in 1965 as the first regional educational institution offering higher education degrees in the Pacific, first a Bachelor since 1966, its first Master’s program in 1987, and its Doctoral degree in 2004. In 2010 the PTC Council approved the resolution to transform the College into a University. The University transition only started in 2019. Regionally and internationally renowned and known as PTC, the college will now become the regional “Pasifika Communities University” (PCU), with its vision popularly known as “Whole of Life”, with a communities-based learning approach. The University has 3 schools and 5 Centers and Institutes. The School of Theology and Ecumenism (SOTE), the School of Ecology and Resilience Development (SERD), and the School of Pasifika Philosophies, Education, and Sciences (SPPES). The institutes include the Regional Institute for Leadership Development (RILED), the Institute for Climate Indigenous Knowledge (ICIK). The Centers are the Centre for Gender and Social Justice, Centre of Research for New Pasifika Consciousness (CERNPAC), and Mission and Interfaith Centre (MAIC).
The institution is internationally known for its teaching, research, and community engagement on regional ecumenical education, the impact of climate change in the region, and the formation of leaders and prophets of justice for the context of the Pasifika region. The institution has been decolonizing and transforming education and development from a Pasifika Indigenous perspective, based on a Home of ‘Whole of Life’ education, an education that is relational, integrated, and holistic, that does not put peoples, cultures, faith, and identities into divisive and eliminative boxes and binaries. The new university will return education to the communities, learning with the land, ocean, skies, and multiple relationships. This is a transformative justice-driven educational platform and agent of change grounded again in our Pasifika faith and cultural values and spiritualities once removed by secularized education. PTC/PCU is already at the forefront leading a revolution regionally and globally in terms of providing new foundations for development grounded in our Pasifika indigenous ‘Whole of Life’ philosophies, theologies, ethics, and spiritualities.