Opposition Member of Parliament Premila Kumar has expressed deep concern in Parliament over the shortage of qualified teachers and the apparent mismatch in teacher placements across Fiji’s schools, calling it a failure of coordination between the Fiji Teachers Registration Authority (FTRA), teacher training institutions, and the Ministry of Education.
Speaking during parliamentary debate yesterday, Ms Kumar said the issue was not new but had now reached worrying levels.
“Various subjects where we don’t have teachers — the report itself admits this shortage, and anyone visiting our schools will see the reality: classrooms without teachers or subjects taught by those outside their field,” she said.
She revealed that some teachers with limited authority to teach had been placed in classrooms, while qualified secondary teachers were being deployed to primary schools where they lacked the proper qualifications.
“We have teachers who have limited authority to teach, allowing individuals who do not fully meet registration requirements,” she said.
“And we have fully registered secondary school teachers teaching in primary schools with no primary teaching qualification.”
Ms Kumar highlighted one example that she described as particularly alarming.
“There is an English language teacher assigned to teach mathematics with just one unit in the subject. So what kind of teaching is happening in that classroom?” she asked.
She said such practices might appear to be convenient short-term solutions but warned they undermine education standards.
“This may be a convenient short-term fix, but it sends a dangerous signal that we are willing to lower standards. When underqualified people are teaching, it is our children who pay the price,” she said.
Ms Kumar added that while there was an oversupply of early childhood teachers, there continued to be shortages in key subjects like mathematics and science.
“We cannot have hundreds of ECE graduates without jobs while critical subjects go unstaffed. This is poor planning and poor coordination, and FTRA must take some responsibility for this mismatch,” she said.
