I have been following the debate on this issue. Firstly, establishing USP's 4th Campus would address the current explosion of student population. Thus remedying the current situation we are facing.

Secondly, this development should not rule out the plan for upgrading SICHE to university status and this should be a long term plan as a lot of work needs to be done.

I'm a believer in healthy competition. I would like to see more tertiary education opportunities available to locals. The more alternatives we have the more options are available to students. For instance, now Fiji has three universities, Uni Fiji, Fiji National Uni and USP. What this implies is that students will have more options to choose from when it comes to affordability and course offerings.

In short, we need to establish the 4th USP campus now and start a serious planning and actions for upgrading SICHE to university status. One can not remedy the problem of increasing tertiary student population with mere convincing arguments. What Solomon Islands need today is serious hands-on actions.