Minister for Education, Aseri Radrodro says the Ministry intends to review Early Childhood Education teachers’ work hours as they would be given contracts with a stated salary of $14,000 that they will be entitled to but unfortunately ECE teachers are paid an hourly rate of around $5 and are working five hours a day.
Radrodro highlighted this while responding to a question by FijiFirst MP Hem Chand on the steps being undertaken by the Ministry to address the ECE sector, particularly the ECE curriculum and salary of teachers.
The Education Minister says sometimes ECE teachers salary amounts to only $9,000 which is a discrepancy.
FijiFirst MP Rinesh Sharma questioned Radrodro if the ECE salary could be increased and if there was any impact assessment done as there are about 1,500 ECE teachers and majority of them have been affected by the increase in VAT.
Radrodro says they are trying to address the anomalies in ECE teachers’ pay that was inherited and they are trying to give them what they were offered in the first place with proper working hours.
He further says currently the Noda Mataniciva curriculum is being used for Early Childhood Education since 2009 and it needs to be reviewed to bring on par with the changes and demands which will be undertaken next year.
While responding to a question by Opposition MP Alvick Maharaj on ECE and primary schools not accepting students from their feeder schools, Radrodro says there are over 700 primary schools but only 170 secondary schools. Radrodro says this is an imbalance they are trying to address by building new schools.
