Education Minister Rosy Akbar [Source: Fijian Government]

With schools opening next week, the Education Ministry says all the extracurricular and competitive sporting activities in schools will be forgone.

Minister Rosy Akbar says this is to ensure that the lessons are covered.

Akbar says the school curriculum has been realigned to ensure that all the schools are on the same page.

Term one and term two is mostly focused on lot of activities that are extra curricular sporting activities so we will be forgoing all the extra curricular activities and sporting activities, competitive obviously children will be exposed to normal activities but we will be utilizing the time for competitive sports to ensure that the coverage of work is completed.

She says school term holidays have also been reduced to make up for the time lost.

We’ve taken out the holiday , now term 2 will have only one week school holiday so all those time would be utilised but again if I could emphasize to our heads of school we will not pressure our children for Saturday classes and extra classes, 8 to 4 is ample time for us to complete the required coverage and prepare our Year 12 and 13 for exams. The rest of the classes will undergo school based assessments.

Meanwhile, in a circular the Ministry says as per the initial academic examination arrangement Year 12 and 13 students will sit for examinations in the last two weeks of term 3.

The classes for Year 12 and 13 will resume from next Tuesday while the rest of the Primary and Secondary schools and early childhood centers will open a week later.