Importance of education

AROUND this time last year, we learnt that some students who entered high school were either nonreaders or slow readers. This was a major concern. The claim was made by a high school principal Praveen Chand during a heads of schools meeting at the Vunimono hall, Nausori that week. He said the issue was a tragedy for Fiji. He revealed he often got emotional while trying to work out ways to help students with literacy issues who entered his school. The problem, he pointed out, was not unique to his high school. He claimed it was a national issue and the Ministry of Education had to find a way to immediately address it. The ministry, he said, had to get to the root cause of the issue before it could formulate solutions. The issue, he suggested, could be related to the kind of students present in schools or could be attributed to the kind of textbooks they were learning from or the curriculum that was being used. Mr Chand believes the national pass rate showed a clear indication of the enormity of the problem. “Just imagine these students do not know how to read and write in high school,” he said at the time. As we look ahead to the start of the new school term, we are reminded about the need for us to be prepared as parents and guardians. Last year, the Ministry of Education’s Central Division education officer Pravin Nath said the ministry had data on the issue and was working on how best it could rectify it. Many questions were raised in the wake of this revelation. It was shocking that some students at high school were unable to read. We asked the question at the time: When and how did we get to this sad state of affairs? Are there other factors that need to be addressed? It makes sense that if some children are unable to read then something is wrong somewhere. Let’s face it, emphasis has been placed on education over the past few years. Money has been pumped into this important sector. If this hasn’t been fixed, then what were we doing wrong? Seriously, if some students had reached high school and were still unable to read well, then we wonder whether the system failed them. As we look ahead to the start of the new school term, we are encouraged to be proactive as parents and guardians. It is in our best interest and that of our young charges that we place education on a very high plane. That means empowering our children. It means setting the base for them to go to school. That’s our challenge. Education is important for a nation. It is critical for development.