A major change of having additional student-free days at the start of each term will be introduced this year by the Ministry of Education, Heritage, Arts and Library Services .

In a circular welcoming all school heads into the 2018 academic school year permanent secretary Iowane Tiko said this year he expects to bring about positive changes to the ministry with the intention of delivering better educational outcomes for the Fijian people.

The circular sent to all school heads, management as well as divisional and district offices stated that the first major change the ministry sought was the implementation additional student-free days at the start of each term.

For  term one there are three additional student-free days from Wednesday January 10th to Friday January 12th..

The purpose for this change is to provide professional development opportunities for teachers and improve school planning and curriculum implementation.

Mr Tiko explained that it was the responsibility of heads of schools to organise and deliver the programme for their respective school.

All teachers are required to attend the programme and heads of schools will have to maintain an attendance register, to confirm teachers attendance.

At the end of the programme teachers must fill in the feedback forms and this will be sent to the district offices and later to the Learning and Development Section in the Human Resources Department.

Each school head will submit a brief report to the District Education Officers and the feedback from participants and head of schools reports will be vital information for improving similar programmes in the future.

Edited by Percy Kean

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