Education Minister challenges the heads of schools and teachers to improve their communication skills

Education Minister, Rosy Akbar has challenged heads of schools and teachers to improve their communication skills as according to her this is something that urgently needs to be worked on.

Akbar says teachers need to have a good command of public speaking and they should be speaking without referring to notes.

While delivering opening remarks at the Ba/Tavua Head of Schools Meeting, Akbar says they will be using a new assessment model which will be called the 360 approached.

She told the heads of schools that the Ministry will be having a lot of workshops with the heads of schools to ensure they understand how they will be assessed 360 from all angles where the community, school managers and teachers will also assess the heads of schools.

Akbar says the heads of schools should not take this negatively as they need others to show them the mirror and tell the heads of schools that there is something they need to improve on.

Akbar has urged heads of schools to be creative and innovative in trying to improve students’ linguistic skills and this can be done through audio and visual.

The Minister says she was surprised to learn that schools nowadays don’t have to listen, speak, read and write which they had during their time where students used to listen to comprehensions and had to answer the questions.

Akbar says our children lack basic communication skills.

Meanwhile, she has also highlighted that they have some early childhood teachers who are under-qualified.

She has told school heads to encourage early childhood teachers to ensure that they are fully qualified.

Akbar says that the foundation of education is laid in early childhood.

There are currently 13,727 teachers in Fiji.