Tiko: Test paper set for second English exam

The test was designed by the primary and secondary unit along with outside experts in their areas

Permanent Secretary for Education Iowane Tiko says the ministry is working on amending the test paper given to applicants last week so it could be used for the next test on Saturday.

“We are facilitating the test again this Saturday not because of the failures but because of the offshore teachers and those on annual leave,” he said.

“We have given them a mandate to come in by this Friday and sit that test on Saturday.”

He was speaking in the wake of the release of the result of the first English Proficiency Test introduced by the Ministry of Education. 50 per cent of applicants for teaching vacancies failed.

Out of the 3250 applicants who sat the test, only 1627 passed. Those who failed have also been given another chance to sit the test on Saturday.

Mr Tiko said the test was designed by the primary and secondary unit along with outside experts in their areas.

“For English language we got a few top Heads of Department and a few principals to review the test paper content and have the questions answered in its relevance for teachers in Fiji today.”

He said the test was introduced because of the poor standard of English in schools. Meanwhile, the Fiji Teachers Union General Secretary Agni Deo Singh said it was a matter of deep concern that a large number of teaching graduates had failed the test.

“The Fiji Teachers Union has always submitted that quality teachers are essential for quality teaching and to ensure that we have quality teachers the recruitment starts at the teacher training institutions,” Mr Singh said.

“The entry qualification to that teacher training institutions comes first.

“We must ensure that these institutions enrol students with quality passing marks from the secondary schools that they come from and then the quality of training that is provided in the institutions must be relooked at.

“Where have we gone wrong? These are teachers who now have come through the process and gone through the theory and the practical training and have been certificated by these institutions.” He suggested that teaching be made a choice profession by making the terms and conditions and remuneration packages attractive. He said the failure was on the part of the institutions that taught and trained teachers.

“Our suggestion is that we assist the new graduates by upgrading their level of English or proficiency in English without denying them the opportunity to enter the teaching profession because they would be looking forward to that. “It would be indeed very demoralising for them to have graduated and be unemployed and they are not able to get any other job,” he said.

Mr Singh said teachers needed to be given in-service training, adding that the ministry’s in-service budget had been meagre and those who had upgraded their qualifications had done so on their own expense.

“Teacher upgrading and providing in-service training are the responsibility of the ministry.” Fijian Teachers Association General Secretary Peni Delaibatiki shared similar sentiments by saying the selection criteria for teaching institutions needed to be relooked at.

“We have raised that with the ministry and the ministry also agreed because right now at Fiji National University the ministry is not part of the selection committee unlike before,” Mr Delaibatiki said.

“The teacher training colleges should select those that have proven they have good knowledge of English so that they can do well there and also come out and deliver to the students.”