Mr. Kumar is a qualified educator with a Master’s degree coupled with 10 years’ experience instructing secondary and tertiary education students. Background includes 15 years’ in the Fiji media.

Mr. Kumar was born in Suva on 17 February 1978. He is married with two children. He completed his primary education at Arya Samaj Primary School, Samabula and secondary education at DAV College, Suva. He obtained his first academic degree in 2000 with a Gold Medal in Journalism from the University of the South Pacific.

Mr. Kumar worked as a Journalist with Radio Fiji from 1996-2000 and then joined Fiji Television in 2000 as Reporter/Presenter/Promotions Producer. He then moved to DAV College, Suva, and taught there until the end of 2005. He has also taught as a part-time lecturer in Communication Studies at the Fiji Institute of Technology from 2007-2008.  Mr Kumar was also associated with Fiji Television as a presenter for Hindi news Khaas Khabre.

Qualifications: BA, PGDETT, PGDLIN S.Pac., PGDEDUL, MED UniFiji

Teaching Areas (current semester/previous teaching areas):

• LLF22 – Foundation Hindi Studies
• LL171 – Introduction to Hindi
• LL215 – The Teaching of Pacific Languages
• LL272 – Hindi Prose Fiction
• LL122 – Introduction to Language Studies
• UU114 – English for Academic Purposes

Research Interests

• Research interests include descriptive and sociolinguistics with a keen focus on Fiji Hindi; and educational implications of ICT on language teaching and learning.

Conference Papers:

• Kumar, S., 2011. Writing in Fiji Hindi. Paper to be presented at the First Fiji Literary Festival, Nadi, 2-7 October, 2011
• Kumar, S., 2010. Fiji Hindi: Spoken but Unloved. Paper presented at the International Conference of Indentured Diaspora, Port Louis, Mauritius, 3-5 December 2010.

Professional Affiliations – Organizations, editorial boards, professional committees, university committees

• FAL Rep – Library Advisory Committee
• FAL Marketing Team Leader - West
• Linguistics and Languages Rep – SLAM Teaching & Learning Committee
• Hindi Studies Rep – SLAM OHS Committee
• Secretary – Hindi Studies Advisory Committee
• USP Rep – Hindi Focus Group – Ministry of Education
• Treasurer - Fiji Hindu Society
• Education Board Member – Sanatan Dharma Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji

Other