Permanent Secretary for Education Selina Kuruleca

Permanent Secretary for Education Selina Kuruleca is trying to get Fijian students enrolled in educational programs in Hawaii to come back and serve in the country.

Kuruleca says this will help address the persistent challenge of high staff resignations from within the ministry.

She states that they will explore avenues for these students to engage in practical work opportunities within Fiji.

“We have quite a large number of students in Hawaii studying, so the visitation with BYU was really looking at MOA and MOU, and what would that look like so that we can get our students who are studying there to come back here and do their practical here? This is a move by the Ministry to recruit earlier and get our students to return home because we need you here at home.”

Kuruleca says that with the high staff resignation, the Ministry is also working with local universities to fill the gaps.

“We’ve already started this conversation with our three local universities here, the University of Fiji, Fiji National University, and the University of the South Pacific, for them to identify with us their students in years two and three who can come and now be enrolled in our system, waiting for them to do practicals maybe a bit too late. How do we get them to start early? How do we make it attractive enough for them to come?”

The Permanent Secretary says the enrollment rate for students doing teaching programs picked up last year; however, resignations continue to persist.

The Ministry is hoping that with this new approach, it will address the teacher shortage.