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Societies and the school systems need to move away from the traditional focus on schooling and
concentrate on learning, says Vice-Chancellor Prof. Prem Misir.
“Schools need to develop the capacity of students to learn on their own; to become involved with
lifelong learning; and to develop a coping capacity for risk and change,” he said.
Speaking at the Fiji Teachers’ Registration Authority (FTRA) program at the University of Fiji,
Prof. Misir explained that while being in school was necessary (Fiji has universal primary
education), the emphasis now has to be on learning.
“The pursuit of a knowledge society requires a revolution in education that would remove all
traditional barriers to teaching, accessibility, curriculum, and quality,” he stated.
“Traditionally, teachers are the only resource of knowledge; where they present facts only for
students to have examination successes; in pursuit of the knowledge society, teachers should be
facilitators of the learning process, where they help students learn how to learn,” he quoted
Berryman, 2000.
Vice-Chancellor said that the focus should be put on learning because it helped in building a
knowledge society through the development of new knowledge, and innovation.
“Individual’s skills determine productivity and capacity to be innovative, in order to build a
knowledge society. The World Bank report (2011) demonstrates that skill levels in a workforce
forecast economic growth rates more reliably than do average time spent in schooling,” he
reinforced.
He concluded by saying that interdisciplinarity, internationalization, and industry collaboration
were significant in the modernization of education practices for building a knowledge society.
The FTRA program was attended by over 20 people from the education field as well as staff of
School of Humanities and Arts at UniFiji.

The University of Fiji is employing a new marketing strategy whereby each school at the University
would be responsible for their own targeted sub-marketing plans.
Marketing and Public Relations Officer Shirley Sangita Prasad explained that the new strategy was
employed in order to have a maximum and direct outreach to potential students.
“The new enrolment planning and projections process will emphasize on the importance of the
inter-relationships between individual school recruitment and marketing activities, in-class
curriculum and pedagogy, academic support programmes, student services, and the total campus
student experience,” said Prasad.
She also said that process would enable the University to specifically plan the size and composition
of the student body, enhance the student experience, and support student success.
“The process will direct us about the type of institution we want to be, the quality and programme
discipline of students we want to recruit, and establish goals and strategies to help us get there,” she
stated.
Speaking further, she explained that the University was focusing on targeted marketing because it is
cost effective.
“The beauty of target marketing is that by aiming our marketing efforts at specific groups, and here
we are focusing on mostly secondary school students, it makes the promotion, our programmes and
courses easier and more cost-effective,” said Shirley.
The university is also aiming for more community engagements this year.
The University will continue to use mass marketing through carefully scrutinised mediums which will help in the branding of UniFiji to a wide variety of audiences.

The education sector is highly important for a country’s development as without quality education there could be no development, says Prof Prem Misir, Vice-Chancellor at UniFiji.

Speaking at the Education Forum meeting held at the Tanoa Hotel in Nadi on Monday (6/03/2017), he said that there needed to be enhancement of the poor education system.

“The education sector is highly important for the country’s development, and, therefore, there must be some alleviation of the poor education quality through progressive policies, programs, and projects, even in rural areas  hence, quality teaching, necessary for quality learning, is one of the prerequisites to develop a knowledge society,” he stated.

He also said that the pursuit of a knowledge society requires a revolution in education that would remove all traditional barriers to teaching, accessibility, curriculum, and quality.

“Schools need to develop the capacity of students to learn on their own; to become involved with lifelong learning; and to develop a coping capacity for risk and change. Honing this capacity for using new learning and teaching strategies is not on the radar of traditional primary and secondary education,” he explained.

He further explained that schools needed to be sure that inputs such as school buildings, textbooks, and trained teachers accelerated learning.

“This means bringing into line management of schools and teachers, financing protocols, and incentive systems with the purpose of learning,” he reinforced.

The Education Forum was organized by the Minister of Education Dr Mahendra Reddy and was attended by the Vice-Chancellors of the three major universities as well other participants.

 

The Centre of iTaukei Studies(CIS) at UniFiji offers a unique course Bachelor of Arts in
iTaukei(ITK) Management whose chief motive is to address leadership and management at
community levels, says Dr Litiana Kuridrani, Centre Director of CIS.
“We are targeting Provisional Administrators; Roko Tui’s and provincial office staffs; government
workers; tourism sector; teachers; and all that have an interest on ITaukei studies and management.
We are also targeting traditional leaders in modern societies for the iTaukei people and we are
hoping to go much deeper to the tikina (district) and Turaga-ni-Koro (village headman) level. They
need to be taught all these basics about participatory integrated community development plans,” she
said.
Dr Kuridrani also stated that the main objective of the program was to help make first our students
and their communities more knowledgeable. In other words building knowledge based society.
“That would link to the national development plan of Fiji, filtering to the provincial and district
level and come to the village level to establish inventories of natural, social, physical and financial
capital and their abilities to contribute to national economic development; she explained.
She further said that the program was more participatory than a trickle down approach (planning
and management with the people). “It matches well with the “solesolevaki” approach in traditional Fiji.
Students are also taught the tools for integrated local community development where the people
identify the problem and they work around that, develop it in their community and link it to the
national level,” she reinforced.
CIS has started with inter-disciplinary teaching between the Centre of ITaukei and the Department of Management.
“In the near future we plan to rope in the School of Law in the anticipation to develop another degree on ITK/Customary law. The customary law should help in understanding and recognizing land laws especially with the current village by laws; land tenure; land ownerships systems; intellectual property rights (flora and fauna) and hopefully land claims tribunals,” she stated.
One of the major areas that CIS also address is the teaching of language and culture in much more depth from language and literature to include expressive and creative arts; traditional and cultural expressions; traditional ecological knowledge; indigenous health & healing therapies; oral history and oral tradition; cultural anthropology; genealogy and migration history and indigenous research.
There has been a steady increase in the number of candidates applying for the program as 23 people from Ministry of iTaukei affairs enrolled and attended a course on “ Vanua, Land and the People (Yaubula) convened by Dr. Kuridrani herself in July, 2016.
The next course would be taught in April and students are still encouraged to apply.