One of the real issues in education in Fiji, be it formal or non-formal, is the lack of women's representation in the various professions. Table 1- shows the occupational distribution of the economically active population according to the 1976 Census Report. Statistics such as these reflect the lack of education and training opportunities offered to women within the last fifty years. Another problem related to the education of women has to do with the drift of young people to the urban areas. Many young women flock to our cities in search of the good life. Many are employed as domestic help and a few are exploited by their employers. More generally women are struggling to cope with the consequences of social change in a multicultural society which often lacks the necessary mechanisms to provide help to those who most desperately need it. Pacific women who attended the Mid-Decade Copenhagen Follow-Up Regional meeting in Suva in October, 1980, attempted to define the women's movement and found that, although the younger educated women were more vocal about the discriminatory practices against women in their nations, they agreed with the older traditional stalwarts that there was a need to develop and articulate a relevant and meaningful Pacific interpretation. The traditionalists believed that although men have always been the accepted heads of Pacific families the special role of women had always been recognised and honoured. In fact in many Pacific communities women were given the high honour of heads of tribes and kingdoms. Women first-born were as highly honoured with titles and privileges as their men counterparts. Male and female roles complemented each other. This same Pacific understanding was reiterated and confirmed in July 1981, in Papeete, when Pacific programmes that could be promoted by the South Pacific Commission and other regional agencies. Madame Flora Devantine of French Polynesia, in emphasising the special role of women, pointed out that women in development strived to remember the past and learn from it, and live the present as they planned forthe future. Many Pacific women have claimed that western influences have degraded the special status of women in the old traditional communities. The early missionaries, for example, promoted feminine modes of Pauline Christianity in middle class Victorian England which resulted in women being domesticated and homebound (Schoeffel and Kikau, 1980).

Today Fiji women have begun to participate fully in the development of their community.' There is no discrimination in formal education. The Fiji Education Act does not discriminate against females. Similarly, the Act of the University of the South Pacific, the only university in Fiji, does not discriminate between male and female: "Men and women are equally eligible for any office or appointment in the University or membership of any institution, body or committee of the University, and all Degrees, Diplomas, Certificates and other distinctions or awards and all programmes and courses of study in the University shall be open to men and women alike." (USP Calendar, 1982). The South Pacific Social Science Association has honoured Pacific women and their effort to promote a Pacific-styled women's movement by devoting to it an entire volume of its publication Pacific Perspective, (Vol. 11, No. 2, in 1983,) and titling it "Pacific Women on the Move." The articles contained in this volume, written by women who have been raised or are living in the region, indicate a need for Pacific women to continue to dialogue and interpret their feminine developmental issues. All the articles reflected, in one way or another, the aspirations of younger educated women and their need to articulate, to the members of their own communities, their struggle for improved conditions for their womenfolk in all developmental activities and programmes.