The Permanent Secretary of Education, Mr. Brij Lal has reminded teachers that students should not be expelled if they were caught breaking school rules.
Mr. Lal made these comments at the Future Leaders Workshop organized at Suva Grammar School last week.
The participants of this four-day workshop were primary and secondary school teachers from the Central-Eastern Division.
Mr. Lal said the purpose of this workshop was to prepare and empower teachers to take on roles of responsibility in schools given that effective and accountable leadership was a commitment of the Government.
He added that the current government had policies and everyone had to abide by them.
Part of this policy, Mr. Lal said was to ensure that every child in Fiji had access to education.
And to implement this, government provided free bus fare, free text books in primary schools, tuition fee was paid by government and supplementary grant to boarding schools around the country had also been initiated.
Mr. Lal emphasized that expulsion as a threat to a child did no good , so teachers should provide constant counseling and guidance to students.
“Teachers should instill moral values in students from a younger age or class because often it is seen that students in higher classes or forms engage in unlawful activities for which they are sent home. We don’t want to see this happening because the aim is to educate every child. Students involved in such activities should be counseled.”
Mr. Lal also highlighted the ministry’s aim to increase literacy level to 100 per cent in the near future.
“Our literacy rate is about 92-93 percent and our aim is to make it 100 per cent. We can achieve this goal since the Government is trying to make education affordable to every child in the country,” he said.
Mr. Lal told teachers to do their best in whatever position they held and to do the right thing because they were the future leaders of schools.