The Minister for Education, Heritage and Arts, Premila Kumar met with a team from the Fiji Education Programme (Fiji Program Support Facility), a team from the PacREF (Pacific Regional Education Framework 2030) project, the Ministry’s curriculum specialists, and Senior Ministry officials regarding the revised literacy and numeracy curriculum in primary schools and its implementation plan.
This was the first meeting of key stakeholders to discuss the limitations in the current primary curriculum and how the revised curriculum will address the gaps. Some areas that have been strengthened are clearer progressive learning and the use of meta-language, clearer vocabulary and inquiry-based pedagogical approaches, amongst other things.
During her opening remarks, Minister Kumar discussed the Government's vision for education in Fiji and why revisions to the numeracy and literacy curriculum, along with other education initiatives, are essential to achieving the Government's vision of "transforming Fiji."
“Quality education and training play a key role in enhancing the capacities of our people towards improving quality of lives and contributing to the socio-economic development of the country," said Minister Kumar.
“The Fijian Government is focused on quality education to create a more skilled and adaptable workforce and a knowledge-based society. A number of initiatives have been introduced to improve the quality of education in Fiji.”
“The Government invests significant funds in education each year with the provision of Free Education Grants, bus fare assistance, and free textbooks, so the burden of educating our children is removed from our parents and education can be accessed by all students, regardless of their location or socioeconomic position,” Minister Kumar added.
“Similarly, the burden to maintain the school infrastructure is shared with the community-owned schools”.
Minister Kumar also emphasised on the importance of focusing on the quality and relevance of education, along with learning pathways, student well-being, and teacher professionalism to realise the vision stated in the National Development Plan.
She added that we needed to move away from rote learning and concentrating only on exam based approach, and to make learning more contextual and fun for students.
As part of this revision, comprehensive and detailed teachers’ guides have been developed along with the syllabus. The importance of these guides was highlighted for the benefit of educators in remote areas who do not normally get much opportunity to engage in professional development. The teachers’ guides will provide an important tool in teaching this revised curriculum.
One of the more significant changes that has been brought about in the Math curriculum are opportunities for students at an early age to investigate, ask questions, and develop critical thinking.
A highly effective method that is engaged in literacy is inquiry based learning.
Minister Kumar said that Literacy and Numeracy play a pivotal role in an individual’s life because of its usage in daily life, so teaching has to be in the context of normal, day-to-day life. Helping someone to read and write effectively or acquire the basic Math and English skills that so many of us take for granted, improves the future of everyone in society.
Last year, the DFAT-funded Fiji Education Programme developed the revised English and Maths curriculum for primary schools and now, work on the secondary English and Maths curriculum has started and is expected to be completed in 2023.
The Minister also stated that Literacy and Numeracy are critical to economic development as well as individual and community well-being. Unsurprisingly, poor Literacy and Numeracy skills have a negative impact on workers' performance.
The Minister expressed her appreciation for the partnership of the stakeholders, especially DFAT, for coming on board to better our Literacy and Numeracy curriculum, and encouraged everyone to keep engaged with each other as this work is taken forward.
There was overall excitement in the forum about the revised curriculum and the approach to learning. At the same time, the meeting also discussed that the only way to get the best out of this revised curriculum is to provide constant support to teachers to teach effectively.
The meeting included discussions on a number of ways in which teachers will be trained to ensure that teachers had training opportunities regardless of where they may be located. Heads of Schools are expected to play an important role in the rollout of this curriculum, as leaders in their schools.
For the long term development of teachers, the Teacher Training Institutions will need to work on the new teaching approaches that the Ministry is now including in its curriculum delivery.
As part of this initiative, there will be Literacy and Numeracy Progress Trackers to monitor and evaluate the learning outcomes so there can be a continuous improvement over time.
“We are happy with the discussions today and look forward to implementing the newly revised curriculum. I do want to emphasise here the role that parents can play in their children’s learning in this curriculum and this will further enhance their children’s eLearning,” Minister Kumar said.