Foreword

• I am pleased to commend the Education For All Mid-Decade Report for Fiji. We join the EFA coordinators and education stakeholders in celebrating the accomplishments and standards reached in Fiji for the last half decade.
• Since 2000, the Government of Fiji has implemented a number of important measures to ensure effective and accelerated implementation of its policies and targets to promote access to quality education, and also of the Education for All goals.
• The expansion of the Compulsory Education, the development of the Early Childhood Education Policy, the support for the adult literacy related ‘Matua’ programme and the development of the new National Curriculum Framework are just some of the examples of such policy initiatives.
• This EFA Mid-Decade Assessment report represents an important opportunity to assess both the progress made in achieving our Educational goals and EFA goals and targets over the past 5-6 years.
• There has been a significant improvement in education standards which has led to the narrowing of the gap in access and the improvement in quality across the country.
• It is also heartening to see improvements in administrative and professional support towards the management of education programmes which has contributed to the achievements highlighted in the EFA MDA report.
• There are however some key issues that need concerted effort.
• The report identifies some key challenges and gaps in student performances. There is a need to address many of these challenges, in terms of system capacity building, effective targeting of under-performing districts and additional resource mobilization.