An Australian website provider has offered to set up school websites for free in Fiji. Schoolzine – believed to be the largest school website provider in Australia – says every school, large or small, deserves to have a website for communication purposes.

Managing director, Dion Guthrie, said the company had positioned itself to fund the project to help children in the Pacific, with Fiji being the first.

“Our custom-built website templates reduce time and costs; however, we are looking for commercial partners to replicate the project in other Pacific Islands,” he said.

“We have the knowledge and vital resources to support and guide schools as they begin their digital journey. We partner with schools for life!

“Schoolzine has a unique skill set that has been fine-tuned for over 15 years. We can quickly customise our internal process to complement the needs of a region and its schools.”

Some schools have gone on board, welcoming a website provider that they don’t need to pay for.

“We have already launched our first Website For Schools Project in Fiji and are using what we have learned to prepare for larger-scale rollouts across other Pacific Islands,” he said.

Mr Guthrie said 50 Fijian schools were interested in the company’s project work.

One of the schools was Seaqaqa Primary School and the head teacher, Jagendra Prasad, said they had their website designed last week.

He said they were working on learning ways to navigate the school website.

However, Schoolzine’s effort to collaborate with the Ministry of Education was still in the pipeline.

Data Privacy

Mr Guthrie said Schoolzine took data protection very seriously. The company’s website stated:

“We must always have a lawful basis for using personal data. This may be because the data is necessary for performance of a contract with you, because you have consented to the use of your personal data, or because it is in our legitimate business interests to use it.”

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