Parents are not monitoring or supervising their children’s school work at home, says Education Minister Aseri Radrodro.
In Parliament yesterday, Mr Radrodro said this was one of the contributing factors to the varying passing rates of students sitting the Fiji Year Eight Examination.
“Parents are also noted to be not supervising and monitoring their student’s school work at home or homework,” he said.
“Attendance problems, irregular school attendance due to illness, family responsibilities or lack of interest, parental and family factors, limited engagements of parents in the children’s education such as not monitoring homework or attending school meetings.”
He said community-related issues were another reason.
“Community factors like issues like violence, substance abuse, lack of access to support services, lack of access to digital learning as evidenced in our school visits to rural and maritime areas.
“The lack of accessibility, particularly during periods of remote learning, unclear, overly difficult exam questions that do not reflect the curriculum that has been taught, weak systems of monitoring in addressing individuals or group learning deficit.”
He said there was also a need to address systems within the ministry on curriculum reviews that needed to align with the availability of teachers.
“There seems to be a need to improve on the educational issues regarding curriculum reviews, and curriculum changes to accommodate the changing needs of the inadequate teacher recruitment and retention strategies.
“The over-emphasis on note learning and exam results rather than conceptual understanding.”
Mr Radrodro added addressing these issues would require a multi-stakeholder approach.
“There are other contributing factors as well and addressing these factors requires a collaborative approach among schools, among families, among policymakers, among the community, the ‘lotu’ to create a supportive learning environment and an effective education system.”
