FHEC Director, Doctor Rohit Kishore.

The Fiji Higher Education Commission is working to enhance the qualifications of higher education institutions.

FHEC Director, Doctor Rohit Kishore says with global factors like COVID-19 and climate change, the socio-economic circumstances have changed as well as the needs of the labour market.

He adds that from the higher education sector’s point of view, on the one hand, there is an oversupply of knowledge and skills, and on the other hand, there is a shortage of skills.

To help fix the imbalance, the FHEC Director highlighted that a workshop with stakeholders is the way forward as they work to create a toolkit to help develop and review National Qualifications.

“We have about 70 stakeholders from different sectors coming here, and we are reaching out to these people who are on the ground in the job market and working in the industry to tell us the kind of skills and knowledge that they need. We want to get it right. It’s not that we want to sit in the office and develop something; we are making an outreach to these people, the stakeholders.”

Dr Kishore says, together with consultants from Australia, the information from the workshop will be collated and developed into a toolkit.

“The standard-the toolkit as we say, will tell us how the new qualification should be developed and what the new qualification should have in terms of learning objectives and outcomes so that the skills that are required, the new, current and future skills that are required in the industry, we’ll fulfil.”

Dr Kishore confirms this will also increase the employability of young new graduates. LR/KU