The Higher Education Commission has warned that the proposed Education Bill 2025 does not clearly regulate micro-qualifications and short courses, leaving students at risk.

HEC Compliance and Monitoring Officer Neha Prasad told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Affairs that the Bill fails to formally place these qualifications under the Commission’s oversight.

The Fiji Higher Education Commission says micro-qualifications, which are often short courses lasting a few weeks, are increasingly popular among working adults seeking to upskill. However, these courses currently fall outside the scope of the Higher Education Act.

“We recommend a specification of Higher Education Commission Fiji’s authority with relations to accreditation, qualification and its compliance enforcement.”

Committee member Faiya Koya questioned the credibility of micro-qualifications.

“When you actually say micro-qualifications and you say that these are very short courses, limited by hours, et cetera, so the end result in all of this is not actually a qualification. It’s you get certification for participating. Is that the case? And you have to complete more of it to actually get certification of some sort.”

In response, Director of the Commission Dr Eci Naisele said these segments are non-award, where a participation or attendance certificate is given at the end of the training.

Naisele added that the qualification framework is currently under review to capture micro-qualifications so they can be legitimized as proper qualifications instead of just certificates of attendance or participation. He said they could later build into full-fledged qualifications.

HEC also highlighted the growing demand for flexible learning options among Fiji’s working population and said proper regulation would protect students from unaccredited providers while expanding access to skills-based education.

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