There has been a drastic reduction in regional students enrolled at Saint John’s College in Ovalau this year.

The school is renowned for accommodating a large number of students from neighboring islands.

Principal, Mereana Kitolelei says the drop is due to border closures and this halted many of their school programs last year.

However, Kitolelei says some regional students have returned to the school this year.

“This year we have six from Nauru, six from Papua New Guinea and one from Kiribati, a total of 13 regional students.”

Kitolelei adds the school last year recorded 97 percent pass rate for Year 13 and 85 percent for Year 12, a tremendous improvement from the results achieved in 2019.

“It was mostly COVID-19 that made us change our attitude especially the teachers. When we came after that long COVID break everybody was focused, the attendance and punctuality of the teachers – most of the time we had 100 percent attendance which we did not have in 2019.”

The School Principal says their immediate need is the installation of surveillance cameras for the safety of students and their belongings within the school premises.