Fiji’s Literacy Week (7th- 11th September) is about empowering our communities and our schools to value and recognize the power of literacy in our society today. It involves all segments of society regardless of religion, race, colour or creed; hence it encompasses an inclusive system of learning to read, write, understand and to effectively communicate what has been learnt to interested people.
In celebrating its efforts in promoting an inclusive-based literacy system, the Education Ministry, in partnership with the Fiji Society for the Blind and the International Council for the Education of persons with Visual Impairment (ICEVI) will embark on a three-week workshop on “Braille Education and Curriculum Access”.
This means that just as a pen, paper and reading and writing materials are easily accessible for sighted children, so will this be for children with visual impairment when they have access to a braille machine to write and to brailled reading material for reading.
This is major development in education for Fiji, as it prepares the way for the production of brailled curriculum materials to be made accessible for all schools requiring this service.
The Ministry is grateful to FESP- AusAID for sponsoring two officers to be trained in Sydney on braille technology and production.
The workshop is scheduled from 15-18 September for the Central and Eastern Division at the Fiji School for the Blind. For the Northern Division this will be conducted from the 21st to 25th September at Labasa Special School and at the Savusavu Education Office Conference Room. Finally in its third week, the training will be conducted for the Western Division from 28th September to 2nd October at the Ba Education Office and at the Nadi Sangam Primary School.
The Ministry is inviting participants from all the 9 Education Districts including Early Childhood Education (ECE) primary, secondary teachers. In addition to this, invitation is also extended to lecturers from teachers’ colleges, USP, secondary and tertiary students, church and community representatives.
This representation is important as the training aims at providing awareness on braille education and curriculum access to a wider cross section of the community. These invited participants would also serve as reference associates for strengthening current and future developments and support for education of our children with visual impairment.
Filipe Bole
Minister for Education, National Heritage, Culture and Arts, Youth and Sports, Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment.