Schools need permission from MOE before embarking on fundraising initiatives - Akbar

Minister for Education, Rosy Akbar says schools will need to seek permission first from the Ministry before embarking on any fundraising initiatives.

As highlighted by Fijivillage, the Education Ministry says the school fundraising policy has been in place for several years and permission for fundraising will be given in special circumstances and is usually requested by schools for infrastructure development.

Akbar has noted that there have been some inaccuracies reported in some media in relation to the consultation process with school heads and school management on the free education grant held recently.

She says some of the information considered by the Ministry include one fundraising event per year, learning and teaching time must not be compromised, there is full transparency and accountability and no financial target is set for any student to raise.

Akbar says this is to ensure that no parent or student is effectively levied. Funds raised by the school are paid into the school’s bank account.

The Minister for Education says for the 2019 to 2020 financial year, there is a slight reduction. Akbar says this is in recognition that, over the years through the budgetary allocation, the Ministry has taken over some of the expenditure through its own operational budget that was initially allocated to schools from the free education grant.

She says an example is text books which from the 2018-2019 budget, has been met by the Ministry.

The FEG was introduced in 2014 and the budget allocations to date are:

Since 2014, the free education grant allocated to schools amounts to $425 million.

The grant covers the operational costs of the school.