Ministry Urges Parents On Student Discipline
Permanent Secretary for Education, Heritage and Arts, Iowane Tiko made a fresh call for parents to help with the discipline of students in school.
“Let’s show our teachers the support, let’s teach our younger generations the values of respect for teachers in the classroom so that our teachers can do their jobs to the best of their ability,” Mr Tiko said.
Mr Tiko was speaking on Saturday at the launching of the National Early Childhood Education week celebration at Nadi Sangam Primary School in Nadi. Similar gatherings were held in the Central, Eastern and Northern divisions.
Students of Nalovo Kindergarten during the launch of the National Early Childhood Education week at Nadi Sangam Primary School
on July 29, 2017. Photo: Waisea Nasokia
He said teachers needed the assistance of the parents and the community to operate effectively adding that education in the 21st Century was getting complicated and maintaining student discipline throughout the education system was a great challenge.
“Few weeks ago some cases nationwide have been brought to my attention, a student swore at a teacher and the other case where a student was close to punching a teacher,” he said.
“This shows that our society is not the one we used to know. “The art and aspect of respect that we used to have with students is eroding quickly and because of the zero tolerance in corporal punishment we are maintaining at the Ministry of Education places; our school teacher’s even from kindergarten right up to high school education are at a very compromising situation.”
He said if they were not able to discipline the current secondary school students then there was a good opportunity to develop it at early childhood.
“Let show our teachers the support, let’s teach our younger generations to be disciplined,” he said.
He assured the parents that the ministry had some of the most qualified and best practising teachers in the Southern Hemisphere who have been proven with a survey taken from overseas countries.
Edited by Rusiate Mataika
