WEEKEND READING. Scroll down to read:
♦ Why the West Is Losing the Pacific to China & ... Everyone Else
♦ Fr Kevin Barr on the Wages Councils
♦ Why We Need Good Leaders by Sudarsan Kant
♦ Full text of the 2011 Budget Address & link to FijiTV's video coverage
♦ Friday's long posting
♦ Full text of the 2011 Budget Address & link to FijiTV's video coverage
♦ Friday's long posting
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School Zoning
Schools zoning is a brilliant idea. All students who live within two kilometers of the “home school” are to attend that school. There are many benefits and the money saved on transport will also help poor families.
Interestingly, if there are three secondary schools in a zone and one is top notch, the top school will be inundated with applications, rather unfortunately exposing the underperforming schools. That should send a message to the management, principal and teachers of that school. Many rural schools are wracked with local politics and bickering in managements and with people who shouldn’t be teaching. Yes, the Ministry of Education leaves them in outback schools and their underperformance gets passed onto their students.
Top schools will no longer be able to pick and choose their students. It has been whispered that they may lose their ranking because they will be getting all kinds of students, including underperformers. Parents who never cared about their children’s education will also come under the spotlight. Teachers who merely supervised naturally bright students who passed exams mainly by their own efforts will now have to work a little harder. And parents will have to pull up their socks and put aside other social commitments lest they too be exposed like the underperforming teacher.
Now a few question for our educators. 1. What makes a good school? 2. What makes a good teacher? 3. What makes a good student? Here are my ideas: A good school is one that has effective leadership where sound work ethics inspire the teachers, and where the teachers inspire the students. They are able to take what is in text books and get the student to understand it. And continuous improvement is visible.
A good teacher is one who gets the child to implement what he has learnt, and so lifts the standard of all students, including those who previously underperformed. The good teacher is one who is friendly, yet strict; is able to teach children who are slow and able to keep from getting angry and using the belt. Oh,yes. I’ve heard of some teachers who get so frustrated that they take it out on slow students. In some schools bright students sit together and slow students are left out because the teacher pays them no attention.
And what makes a good student? A child who is willing to learn despite distractions, problems at home and peer pressure.
With zoning, underperforming schools should get a lift because above average students may enroll there and underperforming teachers will be challenged or made to leave the teaching profession and go back to refresher school. Underperforming principals and their teachers will be under the spotlight, because if children who usually scored high marks were to drop, they, the teacher, will be seen to be the problem.
You may ask, what we can do about schools in the outer islands? Why do parents have to send their children to Viti Levu and Vanua Levu to get a good education? Why can’t we send brilliant teachers over there? Let’s reward them with incentives. Or better still, ask teachers who are from the outer islands if they would go to their village for a tour of three years. No more than three years. Their challenge will be to improve the school and lift its performance so that a child will leave Form Seven and go straight into USP and fit in.
The implementation of school zoning will probably have teething problems and not all parents will be happy with the outcome but in the longer term I think we'll find school zoning is good. All schools will come up to a similar level. More underperforming students will taught by good teachers and underperforming teachers will be challenged by their brilliant students.
12 comments:
Allen Lockington has analysed the School Zoning proposal accurately. For years this has been followed overseas and reforms took place in some major developed countries along these lines. Such reforms were badly required. Those of us who have educated our children within Fiji and also overseas realise this and understand how performance must be lifted urgently to equip Fiji with the skills and the mental attitude towards work and peformance. GDP must rise. It can only do so with a skilled, educated workforce and smart leaders - who know the score.
Thanks Allen
Nation building rhetoric as usual.
With people like you and bainimarama Fiji has a great future indeed.
Allen, I was sorry to read in the Fiji Sun today about your family's near tragedy on the Queen's Road. It really makes you think how fragile life is and I'm very glad for your sake that this tragedy was averted. I had a similar near-death experience with stray cattle just near the Outrigger Hotel in July. I came over the hill into Korotogo at nightfall doing about 80 KPH when a herd of cattle suddenly appeared in my headlights. Providence was with me at the time and I headed for a gap between them and careered through. Thank God I was in a late model vehicle with decent brakes but I was just as shaken as your family would have been at what several hundred kilos of beast might have done to me. Makes you realise how tenuous our existence is and how a split second can mean the difference between life and death. Any cattle found on Fiji's roads should be immediately impounded by the military and turned into beef curry up at the camp. Maybe their owners can do a few laps of the oval in their underpants before being invited to join the feast. Radical, I know, but maybe it's the only way to stop these people from putting our lives at risk by allowing their cattle to graze at will on the roadside. As you pointed out in The Sun, they keep offending despite animal culls in the past. Anyway, I hope you're all having a peaceful Sunday evening after your tough week. Keep up the good work.
So when these locals apply to the high performing schools exactly who will pay the high fees, as they would have already desired for their kids to go but could never have afforded the fees. What has changed ?
Bula Close call ... thanks for sharing your story. Yes we are thankful there was . And like I mentioned in my letter, I thought the issue of stray cattle had been addressed. Seesm farmers need another reminder.
@sara'ssista..
Well, sara'ssista, you have asked just the right question this morning and you will surely receive an answer.
Us locals have paid for our own children's education overseas with hard work and the creation of many jobs within Fiji. We have also managed to save and to marshall our skills to ensure that our children received the best education possible to benefit the land of their birth. There is a noted vein of envy abroad and in Fiji (and, oddly, New Zealand). Envy will get you nowhere. One remembers clearly asking someone back in the 1980s: "How shall we afford overseas education"? The answer was this: "You will find a way to afford it". And that is what happened. There could be no counting upon scholarships, could there? For many ethnic groups in Fiji were systematically excluded even then. Only twelve visas from Fiji were permitted into New Zealand in the early 1980s for private education (plenty of places!). They were all taken up by civil servants. Australia allowed none. This was confirmed by Sir William McMahon.
Bula Saras sista
You have a valid point. Here are my thoughts; high performing schools like Natabua usually have extremely bright kids. So do Xavier, Labasa College perhaps a few others. For a parent to force their child to go to these schools will be according to the law. And the child has to understand he or she will sit by clever students.
However parents will have to abide by the school law and foot the high bill. There is no way out of that because that’s how that school operates. The law is on zoning only.
A scenario: A child who just manages to pass with say 252 marks and sees the opportunity to attend Natabua, because of this law, he or she will sit amongst students who will have passed with marks from 460 and even those who score 490+. They will be alienated, no doubt having gone through primary school being an average student. And if they are not encouraged, will find themselves coming last VERY badly, and stand out like a sore thumb. This is where the teacher’s caliber will come in and if possible bring that child up to the others standards. Which is not impossible, however, on the other hand if the child IS naturally slow, it will be a miracle if the teachers does. The child may drop out because they may see themselves being left far behind and even shamed by other students. Children can be cruel.
Fiji’s Eighth Year Exam (FEYE) passing mark is 250 out of 500.
But I’m sure the positives outweigh the negatives because zoning has proven positive abroad.
This year Fiji begins with classes one and forms three only. We have one year in which to assess if it is good for Fiji.
zoning has proved positive because others have a capacity to pay not just a desire. If this regime is happy to pick the tab for the differance then fine, i say give it a try.But yes i do see the point that was made about having to accept ANY student in the locality.
We appreciate your views that "school zoning is a brilliant idea". However don't you think it would be preferable if the people had a say in it? Many of us think that a military junta and its coup supporting bloggers should not be deciding that or their behalf?
Bula let the people say ...
That’s a sensible idea, right now many of us have no say, so we do the best we can. What can a few people in Fiji do but make suggestions. Sure we would like to have a say. Sure we would like to have views from the people, but we can’t. It doesn’t work like that anymore. Zoning is a new concept for Fiji, who knows if it will work as soon as it is implemented or will there be problems, like when good schools that used to take only the cream, refuse failures. We heard of a top school refusing a few who just managed to pass their 8th year exams. It’s a point of contention now.
Come next year we will see if it really works or if adjustments will be made. The level of education in Fiji is not very high. 95% of us are literate - can read and right, making complex decisions may not be our forte.
But we hope exceptions will be made by the government, especially where poor families just can’t pay the price of a top school because they live within the zone and there is no other lesser school nearby. Will the government let the child drop out and on top of that penalise the parents because they fear their child will not be able to hack it amongst the ranks of intelligent kids at Labasa College or other top schools.
So we wait...
Bula let the people say ...
That’s a sensible idea, right now many of us have no say, so we do the best we can. What can a few people in Fiji do but make suggestions. Sure we would like to have a say. Sure we would like to have views from the people, but we can’t. It doesn’t work like that anymore. Zoning is a new concept for Fiji, who knows if it will work as soon as it is implemented or will there be problems, like when good schools that used to take only the cream, refuse failures. We heard of a top school refusing a few who just managed to pass their 8th year exams. It’s a point of contention now.
Come next year we will see if it really works or if adjustments will be made. The level of education in Fiji is not very high. 95% of us are literate - can read and right, making complex decisions may not be our forte.
But we hope exceptions will be made by the government, especially where poor families just can’t pay the price of a top school because they live within the zone and there is no other lesser school nearby. Will the government let the child drop out and on top of that penalise the parents because they fear their child will not be able to hack it amongst the ranks of intelligent kids at Labasa College or other top schools.
So we wait...
@ 'Wait and See' and 'Agreed'
Thank you both for your comments - so similar they are exactly the same?
It is unfortunate the people of Fiji have no choice - in who should lead them, what schools they can go to, and many other things. There is a heavy price to pay for dictatorships, particulraly those that also introduce socialist ideas - they simply don't work - ever.
Democracy and free markets are not perfect but are infinately better than alternatives.
I am also pleased that 95% of people in Fiji can 'read and right'. I will be ecstatic when 100% can read and WRITE!!!
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