Minister for Education Rosy Akbar

The Education Ministry says it is confident of completing all school syllabus for this year, should schools be given the go-ahead to open next month.

Schools have been closed since March due to COVID-19 but a decision on whether schools resume on June 15th is expected this week.

Minister for Education Rosy Akbar says all the plans for the next few months are dependent on the announcement by the Prime Minister, keeping in mind the safety of students and teachers.

Akbar says they are waiting for an all-clear from the Ministry of Health.

“We will have to wait for the decision from the Health Ministry to whether we should open schools or not.”

The Minister says the resumption of classes depends on a number of factors.

“You’ll have to understand that there will be issues with social distancing, obviously we have boarding schools, we’ll have issues with students traveling in buses to school, and we’ll have to look at those classrooms that have more than 30 or 40 children. So those are some of the ground realities that we have to look at.”

She adds they are confident that once schools open they will complete all the syllabus.

“We think that we will be able to normally complete this year and complete all the syllabus for our progressive transition into 2021. But that all depends on whether we open on June 15th or not.”

Students all over the country have been on holiday since the 23rd of March following the confirmation of Fiji’s first COVID-19 case.