Fiji Teachers Unions Want Say In Schools Reclassification

The Fiji Teachers Union (FTU) supports the Ministry of Education’s engagement of reclassifying schools to address the disparities in distribution of educational grants.

Union general secretary, Muniappa Goundar, said the announcement by the Education Permanent Secretary Selina Kuruleca, “was a sigh of relief ”.

Mr Goundar said they were against the teacher used by the ministry’s consultants in 2018.

He said the union proposed the idea to consultations on that occasion of using student roll to determine the classification of schools with the appropriate resources distributed.

“With a new Minister for Education and the mass exodus of teachers, the reclassification is timely,” Mr Goundar said.

There are three categories in which schools are classified: Small school- 10 to 209 students, medium school- 210 to 799 students and large school more than 800 students.

Ms Kuruleca said the reclassification would ensure resource allocation was more accurately aligned with the needs of each school.

She said a working team was undergoing efforts into reclassification assessment where certain conditions must be met.

“Remoteness facilities, number of students enrolled, boarding facility, and other relevant factors,” she said.

“A reclassification report will be completed soon to be notified to the line minister, Aseri Radrodro.”

Union Involvement

Mr Goundar believes the involvement of both teacher unions (FTU and the Fijian Teachers Association (FTA) as paramount to ensure the best interest of all stakeholders are achieved.

“This important exercise needs the input of the two teacher unions from the first day and not for the report to be completed and we be just part of,” he said.

“As per the announcement by PS, the initial works of the reclassification have started without the input of unions.”

The unions support the cause, but, not the process in which the reclassification is taking place.

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