Calls for special development grants for rural and remote schools

Calls have been made to include special development grants for small rural and remote schools in the Education Act to assist them in their development because a lot of schools in these areas need infrastructure assistance to provide a better learning environment for their students.

While speaking during the consultation on the review of the Education Act 1966 in Navosa, Thomas Baker Memorial School teacher Jone Kanai says they used to receive development grants before, but it has stopped now.

Kanai says it is hard for rural and remote schools to develop and upgrade their school infrastructure, and as a result, parents had to fundraise to build a two-bedroom corrugated iron house as staff quarters.

St. Teresa's Catholic School teacher Rajneel Prakash, who has served in the school for 13 years, says when he joined the school in 2012, they were receiving development and operational grants from the Ministry.

He says this allowed them to build their Year 13 block back then, but now, it's quite hard to develop their school without this assistance.

Prakash says when the grant structure was changed, the amount of funds for development grants was reduced, but operational assistance remained sufficient to run the school.

The teacher recommends that the Ministry re-look at the development grant and redeploy it to schools that are in need.

He also stressed that a survey should be conducted on those schools that urgently need infrastructural changes, and these development grants will be useful to those schools.

Prakash also highlighted the need to have TVET institutions in rural and remote areas so students from these areas are not moving to urban centres to get further education, which sometimes results in them leaving school due to challenges such as paying rent and social problems.