Adi Vudiniabola

Citation

Thesis Title
The Fijian Diploma of Nursing curriculum: An indigenous case study of a curriculum change

Ms Vudiniabola used Fullan’s educational change theory and the vanua indigenous framework to examine the introduction of the AusAid funded 2004 Fiji Diploma of Nursing curriculum. She identified problems in the process of curriculum development, the relevance and incompleteness of the content, the unreadiness of the staff and deficiencies in resources as barriers to its implementation. Limited curriculum consultation between teachers, external consultants and indigenous nurse leaders led to the failure of the curriculum to meet its objectives. Ms Vudiniabola argued that neocolonialism underpinned the top-down decision making of indigenous nursing leaders in that in dealing with their indigenous subordinates, they emulated the dominant behaviour of their former colonizers. The curriculum was a colonising tool, reproducing western ideologies and nursing values and producing nurses not adequately prepared to care for indigenous Fijians; rather it contributed to the attrition of Fijian nurses to western countries whose values underpin the curriculum.

Supervisors
Professor Julie Boddy
Dr Denise Wilson