Poor literacy and numeracy skills among Fiji’s children remain a cause of concern for the Education Ministry.
Education Ministry permanent secretary Selina Kuruleca said one of her goals when she first came into office was to have all the children in Fiji be able to read and write competently and be critical thinkers.
“Obviously, I couldn’t do that overnight, which meant sitting down with our curriculum unit, looking at what was going well, working with our technical partners on what they’ve done in the past, what we need to change,” she said.
“Last year, there was a pilot of some of the curriculum that they were trying out. Again, towards the end of last year, this rollout or the pilot results came back. We are looking at more training this year before the rollout continues.
“So yes, I want our children to be able to read and write competently, as well as to be independent, critical thinkers, and children who are responsible and able to give back to society. These are the citizens that we’re trying to pump out of our education system.”
Ms Kuruleca added that the National Education Summit also set a good benchmark about what was not progressing well, and how the ministry could harness the assistance provided by other sects of the education sector.
“When I say the areas they could help us with, I’m talking about, you know, EQAP (Educational Quality and Assessment Programme (EQAP) through SPC. They’re very good at doing education, examinations and assessments.
“So, working with them and they’re working with our examination unit to see how they can help. Looking at our LANA examinations, instead of doing it only once, maybe we need to do it more than once in a year because that’s a diagnostic tool.
“It helps us diagnose where we are, where is the gap and where do we need to go. Another area that we are looking at is of course, monitoring of our schools. Seeing where the teachers are doing really well and seeing areas that need improvement.
“When we’re talking about improvement, we’re also talking about being able to provide the training to improve. It’s no use telling people that they’re not doing something properly, and then you don’t back it up with this is the training you need to do.”
Ms Kuruleca also said the minister was very committed to ensuring that there were training units and training departments throughout the districts that could assist with this initiative.
