Principal says it’s over disciplinary issues

Tiko says school has no authority to do it

A disgruntled parent claims son was not given a fair go

Queen Victoria School has told 78 students to find another school.

The parents have been told that the school will not accept them for the new 2018 academic year.

But Permanent Secretary for Education Iowane Tiko said yesterday “Principals have no right to send students home.”

The students’ names are on a Find a School (FAS) list given to parents before the end of the school year today.

Mr Tiko said he was the only one authorised to expel, suspend or give out the FAS list.

Mr Tiko said he had not been informed about the list by QVS.

That list, he said, was supposed to be sent first to the ministry.

He said the ministry would issue the list and it was also its responsibility to find new schools for the students.

“The parents shouldn’t be looking for the new school,” he said.

He said what was done at QVS was wrong.

“There are procedures on disciplinary action against a student and they must be followed,” he said.

A disgruntled parent, Mosese Delai, who showed the Fiji Sun the list accused the school of failing to give his son a fair go.

School principal Seru Banuve said the list was prepared by all the teachers.

The students on the list, he said, had been involved in some disciplinary issues.

Mr Banuve said the students knew what they were involved in during the year and teachers had held lengthy discussions with them about the issues and the list.

Mr Banuve said some of the parents whose sons’ names were on the list met him soon after the prizegiving on Wednesday.

He said they were happy

with his explanation.

But a frustrated Mr Delai claimed the parents were not advised about the cases.

He said absenteeism was given as the reason for his son’s name on the list.

Mr Delai said his son was an athlete and a rugby player.

He said because of his son’s training schedules he was late to classes and was marked absent by his form captain.

He said this should have been done by the form teacher.

In another incident, he said, his son was sick in school and he went to bring him home because he was not eating well, had a stomach ache and diarrhoea.

“I had to bring him home to look after him. He also visited a private doctor to give him a prescription.”

Mr Delai claimed that when his son returned to school with his sick sheet he was still marked absent.

Edited by Ranoba Baoa

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