ON January 10, 1978, The Fiji Times reported on the opening of the Fijian Teachers Association annual conference that was held at the Nasinu Teachers College.
Chief guest was then Minister for Education, Semesa Sikivou. Mr Sikovou said that priorities were wrong and people placed too much emphasis on passing examinations and relied too much on government aid.
He spoke in Fijian for almost an hour about education problems relating especially to Fijians.
He said priorities in education were misdirected from the beginning.
Mr Sikivou said teachers, policy makers and people generally did not put enough emphasis on relevant subjects in the school curriculum.
He felt the curriculum should include the use of the soil and other natural resources.
They over-emphasised academic courses and passing examinations, although there was a shortage of white collar jobs, said Mr Sikivou.
He said children felt they were failures when they did not pass their exams and were regarded as failures.
Children should complete school with a sense of achievement and readiness for a purposeful life outside school, he said. There was a lack of training in civic responsibilities, he said.
He said bad behavior and bad dressing were common, not only in the streets but in the classrooms as well and there was a need to inculcate good manners and courtesy.
“Too many people think freedom means no discipline,” Mr Sikivou said.
He felt the Fijian culture and the teaching of the Fijian language continued to be neglected and should be taught even though they were not examination subjects.
Mr Sikivou expressed concern about the crime rate among young Fijians.
He listed some weaknesses in Fijian society as economic backwardness and a lack of frugal habits, industry, drive and perseverance.
The customary obligations which viewed perishable goods in the past were fatal when observed in a money economy.
He said the drift to towns deprived villages of members and leaders and that young people were needed in villages.
Unemployment and overcrowding were the result of the urban drift. He observed that traditional social control was breaking down without a suitable replacement and listed undesirable changes in village life as the deterioration of general housing and health standards, lack of motivation and respect for elders, loss of skills and the use of imported goods.
Mr Sikivou said people depended too much on the Government to fi ll local needs and not enough on self- help and self-reliance.
The Fijian Teachers Association (FTA) raised a lot of concerns at the conference and proposals were put forward from members and committees.
One of the concerns was the racial imbalance in the teaching profession.
A report from the grievance committee stated that staffing at the government training colleges in Suva and Lautoka showed a clear racial imbalance.
“The staff should be 50 per cent of each race,” the report stated. Another resolution from the conference was on the distribution of resources to teachers and government workers serving in rural and remote parts of Fiji.
The FTA urged the ministry to provide more boats to transport education advisers to remote areas because their work was of great value to rural and island schools.
The association planned to update its constitution after a series of discussion within branches and to introduce a new system of financial control that was more suitable for the organisation.
The FTA Credit Union also announced it would give the association a $6000 grant each year for a proposed $750,000 headquarters which was to be built in 1979.
The association was also expecting to discuss the possibility of amalgamating with the other teachers’ organisation, the Fiji Teachers Union, before it ended the three day conference.
