Government today reminded parents and guardians on the importance of ensuring that their children attend classes.
This was highlighted after more than 300 students from Nabua Secondary School, Nausori High School and Dravo District School were today rewarded for being punctual to school as part of the VuliRoz Campaign.
The VuliRoz Campaign was launched by the Ministry of Education in July this year to improve students’ school attendance by 10 per cent, to encourage regular school attendance and minimise chronic absence.
The Ministry of Education acting permanent secretary Basundra Kumar, while presenting the first round of awards to punctual students at the three schools in the Central Division, encouraged them to maintain their commitment towards school attendance.
Mrs Kumar also urged those who did not receive any rewards to attend school daily on time and make the best use of the various opportunities provided by the Fijian Government.
“Government has carried out 42 reforms to make education more accessible to every Fijian student. These include the historical fee-free education, bus fare assistance and textbooks assistance amongst others. All you have to do is to come to school every day,” Mrs Kumar said.
She also called on parents to ensure that their children are punctual to school.
“Government is playing its part in supporting our children financially. Now it’s your parents’ responsibility to provide you moral support
“The whole purpose of these government initiatives is to make Fiji knowledge based society so that we have good and educated citizens,” Mr Kumar added.
The rewards given today were for those students who were punctual to school from week 4 to week 7 of this term.
Nabua Secondary School headboy, Sitiveni Qalobula, thanked the Government and the Ministry of Education for implementing this initiative to motivate students.
“This is a very good initiative because it encourages us to come to school every day. When students do not come to school daily, they miss out on a lot of school work. This affects their studies but with this campaign in our school, we hope more students will take interest in it and improve school attendance,” Qalobula said.
Sixty out of 461 students from Nabua Secondary School, 135 out of 354 Nausori High School students and 115 out of 240 students of Dravo District School were rewarded for their commitment towards the VuliRoz Campaign.
Close to 7600 students from 18 primary and 14 secondary schools around Fiji are participating in the campaign.
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