DEAR EDITOR, a good number of students undertaking their Degree courses in various programmes at the University of The South Pacific in Solomon Islands Campus (Honiara) have been victimised by the poor internet services provided with in the USP Campus.
This was made more frustration to some of us who doing our online studies here which requires all times must be connected to the internet before we can able to do our academic works such us participating in discussion forums, uploading tutorial, attempting online quizzes or tests and uploading of assignments.
This ongoing issue of poor internet connection has affected us and resulted in losing marks.
This problem of poor internet service is encountered by students every day since beginning of this semester, therefore it could be seen that USP is not providing good services here in Solomon Island Campus.
In addition, apart from the internet services, the study environment within the campus is very limited to accommodate more than 2,000 students undertaking their studies in Preliminary, Foundations and Degree programmes here in USP Solomon Island Campus because limited space and students did not comfortable in such overcrowded environment when they doing their studies.
I personally can describe the service provided here as “first come, first save”.
The description that I used was not express out from my own view but it was told by one of the USP Campus Staff responsible in looking after the GPL computer lab.
As students undertaking online course we have to come to campus every day to sit down and access the internet, but because of limited space to acquire all the students I had been affected negatively in my studies.
I could not submit and post my tutorials on time.
Whoever came early as 6am in the morning will find space to sit down and study.
If you came in after 8am then am afraid no space is available.
The challenges that we faced with regards to the above is a great risk to us especially for the sponsored students undertaking our studies here at the USP SI campus under the Solomon Islands Government scholarship (SIG) because we will be victimised by the National Training Unit (NTU) policies once we perform poorly in the first semester academic results.
Therefore, I urge the responsible officers here in Solomon Island Campus to look for some possible solutions to issues raised in this letter so that students can perform better in their academic results at the end of this semester.
Relmah Ha’ananga
USP SI campus
