Minister for Education Hon. Rosy Akbar recently met with the Minister of State - Minister for School Standards for the United Kingdom Hon. Nick Gibbs on the margins of the Education World Forum last week.
This was the second time for the Ministers to meet and dialogue since the successful Commonwealth Countries Education Ministers Meeting (CCEM) that was hosted by Fiji in early 2018.
One of the significant issue which the two (2) countries have been collaboratively advancing is the renowned Phonics program. Centered on developing and improving the standard of Literacy and Numeracy, the Phonics program is an initiative that has drawn much attention due to its encouraging results.
Minister Gibbs highlighted that the quality of Numeracy and Literacy for UK’s six (6) years old students have rapidly improved since it was introduced in 2012. Results since its inception has seen vast improvement from 52% to 84%, a much sought after improvement for most; if not all countries.
This system is quite unique as it assesses both the quality of teachers when imparting knowledge and skills; as well as the receptive of Students to the teachings.
Given Fiji’s need for the development of our Early Childhood Education (ECE) system, Minister Gibbs shared that UK, had adopted a concept known as Partner School; a system administered by the British Council, aimed at sharing information and lessons for our beginners.
In elevating teachers’ standards, UK has developed a framework known as “Teachers Standards”, which essentially prescribes the type of skills that teachers ought to have prior to entering the teaching profession, and to be awarded quality teachers status.
As a mechanism for measuring quality of university education modules, UK has developed a system known as “Early Career Framework”, which depicts areas that teachers need to be mentored in; as well as an “Initial teacher training core framework” aimed at gauging quality of modules.
In terms of the overarching bilateral collaboration between our two (2) countries, both Ministers have committed to working towards the formalisation of a MOU; entailing the Opportunities and areas of interest of their respective Education sector.
Some of the identified mutual areas of interest includes sharing of teaching frameworks, as well as Teachers and Students exchange programs. They also agree to explore potential collaboration on Technical and Vocational Training (TVET).