Cresantia Frances Koya

Biography

Cresantia (Frances) Koya Vaka’uta is a senior lecturer in Education at the University of the South Pacific. She teaches in the areas of curriculum development and design, education in small-island developing states, culture/multiculturalism in education, and Pacific arts in education. Her doctoral thesis explored Pacific understandings of ESD through an examination of Samoan and Tongan Heritage Arts. Research interests include Pacific island education, Pacific Island Arts, Art as a social learning tool; Protest Poetry, Pacific Research and Evaluation, Pacific indigenous research methodologies and Education for Sustainability in the islands.  A poet and artist, she is interested in the potential role that the arts can play in formal and non-formal education with reference to issues of resilience, sustainability and crisis in the Pacific islands.. In addition to over ten years of art engagement in Fiji and the wider Pacific, she held the position of Acting Director at the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific (2009 – 2010) and more recently, was the Pacific island representative on the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize panel of judges.  She is the Head of Secondary Education: Curriculum & Research at the School of Education, USP and is the Faculty Postgraduate Coordinator.

Research Interest

Arts and Design