Praneeta Prakash 
Education Minister Aseri Radrodro says that the 2025-26 National Budget will strengthen Fiji’s education system, with a focus on increasing student engagement and attendance.
With an allocation of $847 million, there is an allocation to recruit 1,125 new teachers across the early childhood, primary, secondary, and special education sectors.
Radrodro says a key highlight of the budget is the decision to pay Early Childhood Education teachers full-time wages.
“For ECE, happy that now we’ll be able to pay them the full eight hours, and also part of the teacher retention policy, the increase across civil servants, so very good budget. I think this budget is going to continue keeping the students coming to school.”
Radrodro says the budget also removes previous restrictions on how schools can use the free education grant, allowing school management committees the flexibility to allocate funds where they are most needed.
“Well, I think the policy to fundraise has now been under review to allow for schools to have fundraising, but still the ministry will have to see how best we can control and ensure that proper approval, proper authority, and the collection has been used for the purpose it was fundraised for.”
Radrodro stresses these activities will be carefully monitored.
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