Fiji needs to urgently look at reviewing the Physical Education curriculum in primary and secondary schools, and proper sports science and nutrition needs to be taught from the school age.
This was highlighted by Swire Shipping Fijian Drua Head of Athletic Performance, Naca Cawanibuka while speaking on fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan.
Cawanibuka says he himself can only remember students just sent out to play touch rugby when he was in school, and the education system needs to have a proper overhaul that will benefit everyone including rugby players, who will have proper physical education when they come out of the school system.
fijivillage News is in the process of talking about this with the Education Ministry as the Health Ministry and National Diabetes Centre have also agreed that having proper knowledge on nutrition and physical education from the school age will benefit the country as a whole.
80 percent of our current deaths are from lifestyle diseases, and they say a review of the curriculum can bring about a mindset change.
While speaking about rugby development, Cawanibuka reveals that most of the Tier 1 nations have been doing beep tests for students as young as 11-years-old.
He says that most of our athletes are doing beep tests at 20 and 21 years while in other countries, they have been doing it at year 6 to 8 levels.
Cawanibuka says he visited Newington Boys College in Sydney back in 2010 and saw how they have a fully fledged gymnasium in their P.E. room and they were doing beep tests for year 6 to 8.
He adds the results he saw from those primary school students were the same or even better than the Fiji Warriors players back then.
He says the traditional Fijian mindset has been that we fear testing and adds that as soon as we Fijians see a test coming, we start to shudder.
Cawanibuka says this is because our school system has not actually introduced that into our curriculum within the Physical Education program.
You can watch the full Straight Talk interview on our website fijivillage.
