In what was seen as the most detailed report to be revealed for public consumption from the Ministry of Education, has shocked education stakeholders.

Permanent Secretary for Education Selina Kuruleca played on their heartstrings of stakeholders when she said our numeracy performance had dropped and there was a significant number of boys dropping out of school between Year Eight and 12.

She disclosed the facts to the likes of heads of schools at primary and secondary, the vice chancellors of tertiary institutions, community and village leaders, CSOs and faith-based organisations.

Further to that, she backed it up with statistics that the ministry had collated.

99 per cent per cent of children complete primary education but approximately 20 per cent drop out of school from Year eight to year 12.

31 per cent of boys dropout between Year eight and 12. For girls, nine per cent of them dropped out between the said levels.

The data was collected between 2019 to 2022.

“Is this shocking you? Because it’s supposed to,” she told participants during her, close to an hour, presentation on Day 1 of the National Education Summit 2023 at the Sheraton Fiji Golf Resort and Spa yesterday.

“We are not making things up.

“This is based on the data the ministry had collected.

“Children failing in LANA in Year 6 are at a high risk of failing in later years.”

In contrast, she revealed the number of teachers qualified from undergraduate degrees to degrees, and well, let’s just say the results spoke for itself.

In primary schools, there are 5950 teachers. Of this, 67 per cent hold undergraduate degrees, one per cent have postgraduate certificates, 12 per cent with postgraduate diplomas and four per cent with master’s degrees.

In secondary schools, there are 5142 teachers. Of this, 63 per cent have undergraduate degrees, three per cent have postgraduate certificates, 17 per cent with postgraduate diplomas and only five per cent have master’s degrees.

The results speak of the level of commitment from our teachers to our children.

She said: “It is not because of the child but because of the support factors and system surrounding the child.”

It is clear from the above that application and adopting or innovating effective forms of learning are key to impart interest in learning for our future generation.

“The challenge we have for stakeholders in this room, how do we make numeracy interesting?” she said.

“How do we make it creative so our children would want to stay in the classroom during maths time.”

Yesterday, was a wake-up call for stakeholders. From that data, they will form break-out groups today and tomorrow where they will draft concrete solutions for a better educated and new hope for Fiji.

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