Akbar says Qereqeretabua has again missed the point

Education Minister Rosy Akbar says NFP parliamentarian Lenora Qereqeretabua has again completely missed the point when Qereqeretabua questioned the accessibility of the Walesi platform to students.

Akbar says the supplementary content shown on Walesi is also provided on all school resources, thus any student or parent without Walesi access can easily access it.

She says this means all students will have access to this.

Akbar says lessons on Walesi are not official classes and students will not be tested on what is aired.

The Education Minister says once school resumes, they assure parents and guardians that their children will be taught all of this supplementary content.

She further says the content will also be available on several online platforms.

Akbar says Walesi is merely one of the dissemination points for the supplementary content.

She says not only is the content easily accessible through a plethora of mediums by all Fijians, but the students will learn it all over again if they have missed out.

Akbar says this is supplementary content based on the curriculum to keep students engaged and get parents involved.

The Education Minister says when school begins, which they hope will be soon, students will be taught again on this curriculum.

Akbar says she hopes the NFP parliamentarian has learned from her mistake and does better research before bringing such topics up in Parliament again.

She says Qereqeretabua brought the topic up in Parliament, claiming that set-top boxes were too expensive, along with other incorrect information, forcing them to correct her poorly researched statements in the poorly researched Fiji Times article.

The Education Minister says Qereqeretabua appears to have retracted this in her statement to CFL, but still does not quite understand the simple explanation about accessibility.

In parliament, Qereqeretabua had said that not everyone has access to Walesi and parents who want to access Walesi have to pay $149 per set-top box which is not easy money these days.

Walesi has confirmed that 109,761 Fijian families whose income is $30,000 or below have so far benefitted from the Government’s Walesi Subsidy Scheme and the free Walesi application (Android and iOS) has been downloaded over 400,000 times.

The Walesi boxes are sold at $89 to $99, and not $149 as claimed by Qereqeretabua.

Akbar has apologised to parents who may be worried about their children missing out on their curriculum after reading misinformation in the Fiji Times.

Debate should not be about the cost of Walesi Set Top Box - Qereqeretabua

Akbar tells Qereqeretabua to keep children out of politics - By Vijay Narayan , Naveel Krishant Wednesday 03/06/2020

National Federation Party Parliamentarian, Lenora Qereqeretabua is now questioning whether the Ministry of Education ascertained the percentage of students having access to learning on the Walesi platform while the Minister for Education Rosy Akbar has urged politicians to refrain from using children and their education to score cheap political points.

While responding to questions by Fijivillage in regards to the comments made against Qereqeretabua’s claims by Walesi and Akbar, Qereqeretabua says that the debate should not be about the free distribution of 100,000 decoders.

Qereqeretabua also did not specify how she was quoting the price of a Walesi box to be $149 but said that the debate should not be about the price of decoders; whether $99 or $149. She says it should be about the accessibility by students for school work.

She says decoders alone do not mean students have automatic accessibility to educational material being dished out through the platform.

Qereqeretabua adds decoders do not mean automatic connectivity to Walesi because one needs a television set, antenna and cables to ensure clear reception. She further says they are bringing these questions from the public to the Minister in their capacity as the Opposition whose job is to hold government accountable.

She adds to put this into context, the Minister for Education’s Ministerial Statement on Thursday 28th May was titled the Impact of COVID-19 and TC Harold on Education and she spoke about the Walesi platform.

Qereqeretabua says the day before, she asked Akbar in Parliament if she could inform why Government had failed to fulfill its 2015 budget policy announced in November 2014 of providing tablets or laptops as per its objective of ‘one tablet or laptop per child’ to all primary and secondary school students; something which was critical now to online learning seeing the disruption to school caused by COVID-19.

Akbar had told parliament that the Ministry of Education had to shelve the One Laptop Per Child Initiative because the Ministry had to reprioritise and restrategise because of TC Winston in 2016.

Akbar has urged politicians to refrain from using children and their education to score cheap political points after Opposition Member of Parliament, Lenora Qereqeretabua was quoted in the Fiji Times yesterday, claiming that the educational channel on Walesi was not accessible to all students - attributing to high costs.

Akbar says it is already common knowledge that as per the Fijian Government Subsidy Scheme, a Walesi set-top box comes completely free of cost to any Fijian earning below $30,000 a year per household.

The Education Minister says for families who can afford it, it costs from $89 to $99 and not $149, as said by the poorly researched NFP Member of Parliament in the poorly researched article by the Fiji Times.

Walesi has confirmed that 109,761 Fijian families have so far benefitted from the Government’s Walesi Subsidy Scheme and the free Walesi application (Android and iOS) has been downloaded over 400,000 times.

Akbar says these facts, in conjunction with the fact that 93% of the Fijian population is online, means that a large number of students should have access to the education content.

She also urges parents to get involved in their child’s education and encourage them to watch the channel.

Akbar also says every single school has been provided with the supplementary materials covering the same subject matter for parents to pick up, meaning should a student not have access to Walesi, they should have access to the same materials.

Akbar says the article also incorrectly states that they are holding classes over the Walesi television platform.

She says these are only supplementary classes which they are providing for the benefit of children and parents and none of these will be tested. Akbar says every child will still go through all of these curricula with their teachers once school resumes.