About 40% of the first year teaching students at the FNU School of Education in Lautoka started learning how to properly swim in the last four days.
Most of these students were 19 and 20-year-olds.
Fiji Swimming Federation
They are part of the 300 students that got swimming lessons at the Northern Club in Lautoka with the help of a development program called Let's Swim Fiji.
Let's Swim Fiji offered FNU the program as part of a unit that focuses on life skills and the last assessment for the students is on swimming.
FNU Lecturer, Lasarusa Daveta says the students need to pass this unit to progress to the next level and it was alarming to find out that about half of the group were still at the beginners' level.
He says throughout the four days, there were about six swimming instructors that taught a group of 30 students the basics of swimming for about two hours.
[Photos: Fiji Swimming Federation]
Daveta says these students need to know how to swim because they will be going out to the islands and even travel by boat where anything can happen.
He says this unit EDU561 - Enterprise, Innovation, and Enrichment in Education was introduced last year.
Program Coordinator, David Dugu says they hope to work with these students through their university journey.
He says this will enable them to train these teachers to possess the experience and the necessary skills to be actively involved in driving swimming programs in their schools when in the working environment.
