Rev. Dr. Ungatea Kata
Welcome to Tupou Tertiary Institute (TTI). Our services in this Institute are to serve you to the best of our abilities. We are a small Institute, with slightly over 300 students and 30 staff members, in 2015, but we aim to be the leading provider of quality higher education in Tonga.
TTI is part of the Free Wesleyan Education System, which aims to have staff and students live and shape their lives as makers of the Kingdom of God on this earth, providing wholistic education modeled on values lived by Jesus Christ.
We hope this website will give you an indication of what we value, through our academic programmes, our activities and our commitment to serving others. We continue to value our partnerships with overseas Institutions, such as Whitireia, New Zealand, for supporting our School of Business and School of Information Technology academic programmes and Bethlehmem Tertiary Institute for our Teaching Studies and Counseling programme.
TTI has introduced a Diploma of Counseling Programme for 2015 to respond to recent research indicating that this is an area of need in terms of Tonga’s current social climate. We are privileged to serve 10 students in this new course, who are full time employees in counseling-related organisations. We will continue to build these close relationships with the organisations who work together with TTI to provide academic programmes for their employees as part of their career support.
We are also establishing the only School of Music in Tonga, in 2015 by offering a Level 4 Certificate in Music and will include other academic programmes in Music in the upcoming years. We are offering music classes of various string and brass band instruments, to our local communities commencing in May of this year. We aim also to co-ordinate a FWC select brass band to showcase the outstanding musical talents of students studying in the Free Wesleyan Education schools.
TTI offered a new programme, Level 4 Certificate in Business in 2014, and due to its success, we added Level 4 Certificates in Information Technology, Architectural Technology and Teaching Studies in 2015. This new programme is tailored to meet the special needs of students transitioning, for the first time, from a secondary school environment to that of a tertiary environment. The Level 4 Certificates also offer a needed foundation year for students who need extra academic support in order to move to Level 5 academic programmes.
We are investing in our newly established Research & Training Centre to build TTI’s profile as a tertiary institution which greatly values and conducts quality research. We are currently conducting a Pacific Media Assistance (PACMAS) funded research to raise community awareness on Deep Sea Mining and exploring such research opportunities with government departments and civil society organisations.
TTI is currently involved in a tripartite partnership with Ministry of Health, (Queen Salote School of Nursing) and University of Canberra in a programme to upgrade nursing professionalization in Tonga by offering a Bachelor of Nursing, Conversion Degree in the near future. Health is Tonga’s number one priority and TTI, in collaboration with government departments, is actively involved in pursuing opportunities to address our local issues through academic knowledge-based programmes, and modeling partnerships as a way forward for Tonga.
As part of “walking the talk” with supporting students personal development, we have implemented the much anticipated, “Character Development” course, conducted by the Institute’s Chaplain. It is a one semester compulsory programme, which focuses on developing students’ positive awareness of the self and how this can be related to varying social contexts, with a special focus on “workplace” contexts and Christian ethics.
In addition, we are delighted to serve our outer island communities by incorporating the School of Trades, Pouono Campus, in the outer island of Vava’u and School of Agriculture, Hango Campus, in the outer island of ‘Eua. We look forward to strengthening these outer island campuses, which in the past had operated independently under the FWC Education system.
Tupou Tertiary Institute offers student support in our Learning Centre. We have two streams available for students. Students can request for a one to one consultation with a Learning Service tutor or can attend a chosen pre-designed study skills workshop, which they feel they need. The Student Support Services is something which TTI is committed to strengthen as this is an area which is very useful for our students, especially those entering from secondary schools.
TTI offers the only Public Library in Tonga with the TTI Learning Centre. For a small annual fee, you can become a member of the Public Library or you can kindly donate your books for the benefit of other readers! The TTI Public Library has an exciting junior reading programme for primary school-aged children, held every Saturday at 10am. It was initiated in 2014 because TTI recognizes the importance of reading as the “mother of all study skills” and the junior reading programme was to instill the love of reading to young Tongan children. TTI partners with United States Volunteers, who are teachers of different primary schools in Tonga, and they conduct the reading sessions with the children. Since the beginning of 2014, there has been a marked increase of the number of students attending the reading session. We hope this growth in the number of readers continues.
As an organization, TTI is committed is to; serve her staff and students, our local communities and international partners, to support the development of personal characters, as well as knowledge, career pathways; through providing excellent higher education opportunities.
Malo ‘aupito,
Siosi’ana ‘Ungatea Taonganui Fonua Kata