Free Education a developmental fallacy So much drama and hype have been advocated by the government on the benefits of free education now applied to all primary and secondary education and Fiji. Additionally, tertiary education has also been given a shot in the arm with the financial sponsorships from the government. This gesture from the government has become a potential campaign tool which has already hit the local media and will in future become an important issue used to gain political mileage. Although widely welcomed by the public, especially the parents, this so called generous government policy will one day come back to haunt most people, especially the students themselves. Here is a simple scenario that I can forecast will happen in the near future. The unimpeded progress by students from primary, secondary into tertiary will create a bottleneck when students graduate to enter the world of work. There will be an influx of highly qualified people looking for work after tertiary and the current footprint on the ground in terms of employment opportunities available is very grim and there is no substantive plan currently put in place to address this. We all know that employment is closely tied to the investments, both local and foreign for without these employment will be difficult. With Fiji’s small economy the high volume of graduates every year has become unsustainable. Even the current activities of the National Employment Centre (NEC) are inadequate to absorb the current outflow of graduates from the three local universities, let alone the other training institutions. So what else does the government have on its plan to complete the vicious cycle it has created with the free education initiative? Well I suppose nothing. It appears that the government is banking on a wishful thinking that the economy will multiply manyfolds and the problem of unemployment will be solved. Fiji is in for a schock within the next two to three years when the outflow of graduates from the tertiary institutions will become unsustainable. Such situation will create civil unrest in Fiji and someone has to account for its consequences. Let me throw in my vetaran’s advice to check this colossal problem and I itemised them as follows: i) The curriculum from primary and secondary must be vigorously diversified to include more hands on life skills with exit lanes created after 10 years, 11 years and 12 years of schooling to give opportunities for students to graduate into entrepreneuaship with emphasis in TVET subjects which includes agriculture, home management, fisheries, small business etc. Those who academically qualify will follow the lane to tertiary level. A classical example is that a farmer must be exposed to all farming benefits in early schooling from primary and seconday. You cannot mould a farmer from post Form 7 level or higher. ii) The Fiji National University must shed all its science, academic and commerce programmes and revet into adopting a University of Technology as was initially planned when I was the head of FIT. Only technology related sciences, academic and commerce to be taught as part of a technology certificate, diploma, degree, masters and Phds, but the emphasis must be on training tradesman, technicians and professional in the technology. The employment opportunities for these locally and abroad are many. The USP and University of Fiji adequately service Fiji’s needs in the academia and commerce fields at all levels With the application of the two proposals above, the employment opportunities of Fiji’s graduates will greatly improve and the policy of free education will become a catylist to enhance them.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 07:49:32 +0000
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