Teacher Helpline To Be Launched In January

The education ministry will be launching the teacher helpline next year, according to the Minister for Education, Heritage and Arts, Premila Kumar. Ms Kumar made this statement while speaking to teachers as well as the Year 12 and Year 13 students of Natabua High School in Lautoka on Wednesday.

She said the platform was designed to allow teachers to express their opinions on issues they had or views they intended to share with regards to the school community. The teacher helpline is expected to be launched in January 2022.

“In the month of January next year, we are going to launch the teacher helpline and we are going to have a dedicated person who will attend to your queries, whether it is to do with your salary, your leave, completion of your studies and your progression or simply the environment in which you are teaching and are not happy about something, we will assist you through this teacher helpline,” Ms Kumar said.

Teachers Talanoa Platform:

Ms Kumar also encouraged the teachers to make use of the teacher’s talanoa platform and voice their opinions and suggest ideas for the ministry.

“The teachers talanoa platform that we have launched, I encourage teachers to participate on the teachers talanoa platform. I want teachers to have a voice of what we do at the headquarters whether we are coming up with a curriculum, resource materials or we are planning a policy, we want teacher input,” she said.

“Obviously we cannot have 13,000 teachers in one conference room, but the 13,000 teachers no matter where you are can use the teacher’s talanoa platform to give your views.”

Developing Policies:

She said a major change that the ministry would be bringing into the primary school curriculum next year was the introduction of civics and moral education.

Ms Kumar said the new policy would allow students to not only learn about education, but about moral values also.

“One major change that we are bringing in next year is the introduction of civics and moral education where we want our young ones particularly from ECE (early childhood education) right up to Year 3 to focus 50 per cent of their time on morals and civic education and the other 50 per cent will go towards numeracy and literacy,” she said.

“We are looking at ECE and the primary education, we are developing the curriculum policies and standards for ECE and UNICEF has come on board to help us with ECE standards and policies.

“For primary education, literacy and numeracy work was completed by DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) and we are seeking assistance from DFAT to look at social science and science.”

Ms Kumar said once this was completed, the ministry would gradually move into secondary schools.

Students Vaccination:

In her address, Ms Kumar also encouraged students who were yet to get vaccinated to do so in order to protect their loved ones.

“Those of you who are not vaccinated, I kindly ask of you that you start considering vaccination. We are not saying vaccination is mandatory, we are saying that vaccination is good for you, it will protect you and your loved ones,” she said.

She added that there were a total of 5000 scholarships available for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) courses and the Fiji National University would be launching it next month.

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