FIJI has appointed seven commissioners (Dr Kesaia Seniloli, Dr Priscilla Puamau, Dr Vijay Naidu, Filipe Jitoko, Kelera Taloga, Arvind Maharaj and Dr Lavinia Tiko) to a Fiji Education Commission to conduct “a comprehensive review of the nation’s current education system, identifying strategies to enhance teaching and leadership, assessment practices, and ensuring the curriculum is relevant to the local labour market”. (Fiji Sun, 22 May 2025).
These are highly experienced senior educationists who have served Fiji for decades and accumulated a lot of useful knowledge and experience.
Like the Fiji Electoral Review Commission which I am currently part of, I am confident that these Education Commissioners would welcome as many informed submissions that the public can make, so that their report has genuine public ownership, in addition to their own skilled inputs.
To that end, I am pleased to let the public know (courtesy of The Fiji Times) that the public can also freely draw on my personal writing on the problems in education as they emerged over the last thirty years. These writings are all available for free downloads from my website NarseyOnFiji.
Here I give a quick summary of what the public can read and take ideas from.
My four community education books: free downloads
First, please note that my revised four community education books (Fiji Developing, Volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4) which have been available for sale on Amazon Books for $US5 ($F11.30), are now all also available on my website for free downloads as pdf files:
Vol. 1 The Challenges of Growing the Fiji Economy. 2024
Vol. 2 A Fair Go For All Fiji. 2024
Vol. 3 Our Struggles for Democracy in Fiji: Rule of Law and Media Freedom. 2024
Vol. 4 Towards a Decent Fiji. 2024.
Some 90 per cent of all these articles have been kindly published in the The Fiji Times and I am grateful to the owners Motibhai Patel, publishers like Hank Arts and Editors like Fred Wesley who have put up with great persecution during the Bainimarama years.
In Volume 4 Towards a Decent Fiji are my numerous articles in two sections, first on preschool, primary and secondary education, and the second on the University of South Pacific.
Section B: Articles on primary and secondary education.
These are the numerous articles (years of publication and page numbers given) which examine a wide variety of issues which I have written about over the years.
2. School bus fare increases and the poor (1985)
3. Stop discrimination in education scholarships (1989)
4. Ethnic competition for education resources (1995).
5. The Fijian education dilemmas (1997)
6. Fijian Education: Who will tackle the sacred cows?
7. Fijian education: the good news (2002)
8. Free pre-schools for the poor (2003)
9. Sangam’s service: beyond nursing (2008)
10. Please free pre-schools (2010)
11. Don’t End National Examinations (2010)
12. Spell well, not spelling hell (2010)
13. The Marist Brothers in Fiji: A Book Review (2010)
14. Private schools, the state and religion (2013)
15. Again: don’t end national examinations? (2013) (Cens)
16. End of examinations not an achievement (2014) (Cens)
17. Killing community initiatives in education (2014)
18. Misusing children for advertisements (2014)
19. Making people smart by media decrees (2014)
20. The conflicts of interest in the TELS Board (2014)
21. One Ministry builds, others destroy good nutrition (2015)
22. Lies, damn lies and education statistics (2015)
23. MoE asking teachers to support flag change (2015)
24. Strange Pass and Fail Rates? (2015)
25. Are secondary schools doing their job? (2015)
26. Does Dr Reddy really miss intellectual academics? (2016)
27. The mathematics behind Aishwarya Rai (2015)
28. Still no trees for Gandhiji, 11 years later (2023)
29. Why hide Education Statistics? (2023)
30. Gavoka resuming scaling of examination marks (2024)
The titles are fairly self-explanatory but they cover:
school bus fare increases hurting the poor;
racial discrimination in education scholarships;
the problems of iTaukei education;
the critical importance of making pre-schools free for the poor;
the stupidity of ending national examinations;
the great contribution of Marist Brothers (like Brother Fergus Garret who has just retired;
the stupidity of killing community initiatives in education;
misusing children in advertisements;
conflicts of interest in the TELS Board;
damaging children’s nutrition by advertising sugary drinks for school athletics;
the misuse of scaling marks to enhance pass rates;
the ministry’s hiding of education statistics from the public.
Readers will notice that some articles have “(Cens)” in the titles indicating that during the Bainimarama years, censorship of the media prevented the public from reading the articles in the Fiji media, largely because they indicated that education under the Bainimarama regime was going backwards.
Fiji has still not recovered from some of the negative development despite three years of effort by the Rabuka Government.
Many of the articles also suggest what the positive responses ought to be for the problems being discussed.
Section C: Articles on the University of the South Pacific
I am not sure how much the Fiji Education Commission will wish to examine Fiji’s universities. But I suggest that it would be remiss of them not to do so given that the universities (not just USP but also FNU and UniFiji now) and their teacher training, curriculum development and education research functions are vital for maintaining the health of the pre-school, primary and secondary systems.
The following articles (on USP) are all in my Section C of Volume 4 Towards a Decent Fiji.
31. A University Splendid, Beautiful and Enduring (1946) 90
32. Fijian academic performance at USP and secondary (1995) 91
33. Departmental differences in Academic Assessment (1995) 100
34. What USP Staff Quality? the Brasch Report (1995) 105
35. The Dangers of the BCN Project for USP (1995) 108
36. The costs of moving the USP Law School to Vanuatu (1998) 112
37. USP’s Professor Wadan Narsey sent packing (2012) 115
38. USP Censors World Press Freedom Day (2013) (Cens.) 118
39. USP Vice Chancellor and ethics (2014) (Cens.) 119
40. Creeping totalitarianism at USP (2014) (Cens) 120
41. Does Khaiyum really want analytical economists (2014) (Cens) 123
42. Donation of Narsey Library to FNU (2013) 124
43. Prof. Biman Prasad victimized at USP (2014) (Cens.) 126
44. Some USP investigations quick off the mark (2014) (Cens) 128
45. USP VC Stops Panel Discussion (2015) (Cens) 129
46. The declining quality of USP graduates (2015) 131
47. USP acknowledges Professor Narsey’s Palgrave book (2016) 135
48. Expelling VC Ahluwalia: when the line is not drawn (2019) 137
49. USP in Crisis: another NBF (2020) 140
50. BDO Report is not history (2020) 145
51. USP: the illusion of government “grants” (2020) 148
52. USP’s Fiji Bogey (2020) 153
53. A USP Council Solution to Fiji’s Non-payment of Fees (2022) 158
54. USP Stars in the Firmament: a personal perspective (2024) 161
Again, the titles of these articles are self-explanatory but they cover problems still festering today:.
iTaukei education standards at USP:
lack of uniform departmental standards in awarding grades;
the deterioration of academic staff qualifiactions;
dangerous foreign donor funded research projects at USP;
inefficiencies in siting the Law School in Vanuatu;
USP management practising censorship of staff and students;
the Bainimarama Government interfering with USP operations;
USP management becoming dictatorial;
victimisation of senior academic staff;
the declining quality of USP graduates;
the problems in financing of USP;
the bogey of Fiji dominating USP.
Perceptive readers will note that many of these problems are still alive and well at USP.
I suspect that the other two universities (FNU and UniFiji) could learn from USP’s mistakes. Perhaps their own performance today may need to be examined by neutral and critical scholars.
The Education Review Commission could make a start.
The situation analysis of the education sector in Fiji (2008)
This comprehensive statistical profile of the Fiji education sector for the years 2006 to 2008 was conducted by me as part of a broader study (Review of Fiji Education Sector Project) by a team comprising Charlotte Blundell, Ian Collingwood and Wadan Narsey. The study was financed by AusAID (DFAT today).
Drawing on the massive databases of the Fiji Ministry of Education including the Corporate Information System and other databases, this study provides comprehensive statistics on
financing of education
teacher characteristics
enrolment trends (progression and drop-outs0
student assessment and performance, and
teacher attrition and supply.
Where possible there was disaggregation of the statistics by province, rural/urban, ethnicity and gender. Profound differences were revealed which provided benchmarks to assess progress (or regression) to current years.
But there needs to be a political will to conduct such studies as they reveal fundamental problems of unequal educational development throughout Fiji by districts, rural/urban, ethnicity and gender. Many of these differences are “hot potatoes” for any government.
I am certain that if the current Fiji Education Commission were to institute such a comprehensive study as I did in 2008, it would reveal fascinating trends in all the areas of education which the Commission is charged with.
Unfortunately, the implementation demands of such rigorous statistical studies are extremely onerous.
They would need clean databases maintained by the Ministry of Education in
national examinations and assessment data (by ethnicity and gender);
teacher qualifications and experience;
accurate accounts for the financing of schools (public and private);
accurate data on school facilities;
throughout Fiji by districts, urban/rural, public/private;
I emphasise that the databases must be “clean” i.e. consistent in hundreds of thousands of data points and hundreds of variables if accurate statistical analyses are to be conducted.
Of course, they also require competent statisticians who can conduct such analyses accurately. I have grave doubts whether the Ministry of Education currently has these skills for database management and analysis. They were struggling eighteen years ago when I did the work on the AusAID project. It may be that outside consultants may again need to be requested.
Ademic outcomes and basic education in Fiji (2004).
This was a seminal study, published by USP’s Institute of Education, done originally for ADB.
It linked resources for basic education at pre-school and primary levels, with academic outcomes. This required the integration of the Year 8 examinations databases in the Ministry of Education with the financing and teacher databases in the BEMTUP project in the Ministry of Education.
There was also a sample survey of multiracial preschools in Suva examining their academic outcomes. The issues covered are all extremely topical in Fiji today:
ethnic, gender and regional disparities in examination performance;
the impact of multiracialism on academic performance of indigenous Fijians in schools;
the impact of school and class size and pupil:teacher ratios on educational performance;
the role of junior secondary schools in improving academic performance at Year 8 level.
Extremely important is the chapter on the impact of pre-school attendance on academic outcomes in later years especially beneficial for children from poorer families (and not so much for well-off families). This drove home the critical importance of making pre-school attendance free for all children, hitherto more expensive than primary schools, first implemented by the Bainimarama Government.
Studies on Education Systems of Vanuatu and Solomon Islands
My website also has available for free downloads, my studies of the financing of education in Vanuatu and Solomon Islands.
These studies may also provide useful perspectives on Fiji’s education systems which have similar challenges of maintaining quality in rural schools.
World Bank 1990s Studies on Post-Secondary Education in 6 Pacific Countries.
More perhaps of historical value are the 1990s World Bank studies I conducted jointly with Australian consultant Ian Morris, on the post-secondary institutions of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Solomons, Vanuatu and Kiribati.
We also conducted incredible innovative “Tracer Studies” of their graduates, locating them three years and five years after they graduated. This was to examine the labour market performance of those tertiary education institutions.
I am certain that such a study currently would be immensely useful for today’s Fiji Education Review, especially given the massive brain drain that Fiji has experienced over the last three decades with our graduates now working in Australia, NZ, Canada, USA and globally.
Who knows exactly where the graduates of USP, FNU and UniFiji are employed today, and with what salaries? How suitable was their training in Fiji for their global employment, or even local employment?
Surely, it is just as important for the Fiji Education Review Commission to find the answers to these questions today.
These studies give some answers, but more importantly, what questions to ask.
Fiji Education Act Review Commissioner Rokobua Naiyaga, left, with her team during the National Education Act Review consultation at the Albert Park pavilion in Suva on Tuesday. Picture: JONACANI LALAKOBAU
Teachers with students during the National Education Act Review consultation at the Albert Park pavilion in Suva on Tuesday. Picture: JONACANI LALAKOBAU
Below: Kelera Taloga during the National Education Act Review consultation at the Albert Park pavilion in Suva on Tuesday. Picture: JONACANI LALAKOBAU
