Minister for Education Rosy Akbar intends to include cancer studies into the Fijian school curriculum’s Family Life Education.
While speaking at the “Win Against Cancer’ event in Nadi, Akbar says currently we are so prescriptive in our curriculum services in Fiji because we are preparing children for exams.
Akbar says they do have Family Life currently within the school systems and she intends to use that to ensure that they include awareness on any form of cancer and on all forms of diseases adding the little children can actually be their mouth piece as they are the ones who can take the information back home.
The minister adds children would understand the diseases, especially if their own parents were patients, and it would help children be more proactive in identifying forms of cancer and urging medical treatment and family support.
She says children at a very young age must be made to understand what is happening around them and she noted that with the current multitude of diseases being faced, cancers and non‑communicable‑diseases had created a double burden.
Akbar added that many cancer patients were still seeking medical treatment at extremely late stages and that information about the different cancers need to be well understood by grassroot Fijians.
