Ten pilot schools, including libraries, will be established in Tailevu to help students with their reading and writing skills.
Academic Doctor Akanisi Kedrayate, who heads the province’s education committee said five would be stationed in Tailevu South and the remaining five in Tailevu North.
“As a lecturer, and I can vouch for it at the University of the South Pacific, the ability to read and communicate is deplorable,” she said.
“They can’t write assignments because people now use phones and plagiarism comes up. They need to think for themselves.
“So the Tailevu Education Committee, apart from giving scholarships, will set up pilot schools to help our children develop and improve their writing and reading skills.
“We are partnering with the Tailevu community in Brisbane which has set up a trust to help out with this project.”
Ms Kedrayate said they would have libraries as part of the project which would contain iTaukei and English books.
She added that scholarships which were established in 2019 have had 80 per cent of their recipients graduate from tertiary schools.
“The scholarships are funded by the people of Tailevu through the annual event of Tailevu ni Siga’ and there’s funding of between $50,000 and $100,000.”
