Information Centre Launch to Help Students Seeking Tertiary Education
ANational Information Centre (NIC) has been launched to provide relevant information for students pursuing higher education in Fiji.
While launching the initiative Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts Education Arts Permanent Secretary Anjeela Jokhan said the centre would be an instrument that would make it possible for information to be accessed not only locally, but by other members of the convention.
It will be used for benchmarking and mobility.
Ms Jokhan said Higher Education was a key driver in preparing the labour force in any country and hence played a critical role in building the economy of countries.
“With mass education comes certain challenges such as quality assurance and creating the kind of graduates that meet the needs of the nation,” she said.
“As a member state we have been working to develop the National
Information Centre for Fiji which I am happy to say, is now complete.
“We will of course continue to improve this and make it more informative with whatever additional relevant information we will need.”
The NIC will:
i. Capture education traditions, systems, and values of Fiji; ii. Provide information on quality assurance, accreditation and qualifications framework, and iii. Guide both local and international students on higher education opportunities in Fiji.
The information available at NIC includes:
the Description of the Fijian Education System in general;
Detailed Description of the Fijian Higher Education System;
Quality Assurance Systems for Higher Education Institutions, Programmes available and accreditation of
Programmes;
The Framework for organising Higher Education Qualifications;
Procedures for the Recognition of Foreign Qualifications.
Ms Jokhan said the mobility of internationally recognised programmes were also important in validating the quality of graduates.
“We live in a highly globalised world and countries cannot afford to have programmes that are not internationally recognised or benchmarked,” she said.
She added that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had an important role to play in this and the ministry looked forward to more development in this area.
“I thank the HEC and its board for developing the NIC and look forward to the many developments that it plans. I hope our students, parents, industries and the general public use the NIC and benefit from it,” Ms Jokhan said.