The reduction in entry marks into universities has weakened the education system and affected students’ abilities to perform well at the tertiary level, says Monash University academic and Fiji Higher Education Commissioner Professor Paresh Narayan.

He said this while addressing delegates from the University of the South Pacific, University of Fiji, Fiji National University and the Ministry of Education.

“One example is several years ago, the major universities actually reduced their intake based on the marks that you get in Form 7 to actually enter universities,” he said.

“I know when I was applying for admission to USP, the minimum mark was 280.

“I think it has gone down to 210. That is a significant decline. What does that mean? It means that you are entertaining the possibility of weakness.

“You are weakening the system and you are entertaining it. Simply by reducing the intake marks, you are basically submitting to the system’s weaknesses rather than looking for solutions to fix it and that is where the Fiji Higher Education Commission comes in.”

Prof Narayan said this has also resulted in Fiji’s inability to create leaders. “What this has done then is the graduates coming out of the tertiary institutions, which is the 95 per cent, we will be very lucky to generate leaders out of that.

“The remaining top 5 per cent will go to Australia and New Zealand. We lack leadership and what that does is — this bridge here from the tertiary institution to the knowledge economy — is a broken bridge. So that is the problem.” |