THE cycle of poverty can only be broken through education, says Education Minister Rosy Akbar.
She made the comment while commissioning new classrooms and buildings at Nacaci Hindu Primary School in Ba this week.
“Education gives you the power to earn,” she said.
“In today’s society, the more educated you are, the higher your earning capacity.
“All children have the power to do that.”
Ms Akbar added that instead of looking to urban areas for opportunities, rural students should take stock of their surroundings and the potential that was there.
“You have got to rise above what you are today or what you have today. Just because you are a farmer doesn’t mean you are a nobody, you can become a very strong, very powerful and very influential farmer, you can earn a lot of money.”
She said it was sad to see age-old practices being set aside for modern lifestyle pursuits.
“The biggest problem in Fiji is we don’t want to do things, we want others to come and do it for us.
“For a country with so much land, we are blessed and we need to go back to basics and that is what we want to start in our schools.”
Ms Akbar said the Government had allocated funds for schools to establish vegetable gardens.
