Trainee teachers will have to be fluent in Hindi and Fijian to graduate from the Fiji National University as of next year.
At the opening of the university’s National Education Conference in Lautoka the Vice Chancellor Dr Ganesh Chand said from next year all teacher trainees would be required to be fluent in Hindi and Fijian.
And unless they were they would not be able to get a graduation certificate.
He said the level of competency in both languages would need to be “at Nai Lalakai and Shanti Dut” level.
Dr Chand said this move was an initial university response to the number of challenges before Fiji, and in particular one that emerged for teachers in regard to the Peoples’ Charter for Change and Development.
He hopes it will be a strong motivator for other sectors to ensure a society that respects diversity and encourages unity.
“Without language understanding there is not much of a chance for society to be united,” Dr Chand said.
The Vice Chancellor also commended the issue of school zoning to be introduced by Government next year.
“This is the first time in Fiji we have had a serious look at concrete measures to integrate schools and make parents more responsible for the quality of schools in their neighbourhood,” Dr Chand said.
“What used to happen up till now is that parents would have a stake in one school, maybe an elite one, and particularly the more enlightened parents.
“With zoning it will be in their interest to ensure that their neighbourhood schools improve quality and they become accountable for the quality and efficiency of the delivery of education in those schools.”
The Vice Chancellor announced a FNU programme to capture in print the wisdom of people who had extensive experience in various sectors which had remained undocumented.
“What we intend to do from next year is to establish a special programme to get people to write their experiences so a regular feature of FNU will be what we call ‘writers in residence’, but they won’t be writing stories, they will be writing actual experiences in policy making or their autobiographies, and the rest,” Dr Chand said.
“Because we don’t want that wisdom not to benefit the current and future generations,” he said.