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Education Minister Aseri Radrodro believes that the reintroduction of scaling in national examinations will address discrepancies between schools in rural and maritime areas compared to urban schools.

He made the comments as cabinet yesterday agreed that public consultations be undertaken on the intention to reintroduce scaling.

According to the Education Minister, they had presented the paper to cabinet yesterday advising them on the need to conduct consultations before the reintroduction.

Education Minister Aseri Radrodro

Radrodro says the consultations aim to gather input from relevant stakeholders and ensure that the perspectives of all involved parties are considered before it’s taken back to cabinet for further discussions and deliberations.

“The introduction of scaling seems to provide equity in terms of the education systems in Fiji, especially in the National Examination process. Schools in the rural maritime are perceived to be scoring less, but this is a reflection of their ability and capability, given the challenges and limitations that they have. There is a need to have a standardized process and also provide equity to all the schools around Fiji.”

The scaling system was introduced in 1979 for the Fiji Seventh Form Certificate Examination and in 1989 for the Fiji School Leaving Certificate Examination as a principled method of addressing subject equivalence.

It was removed in 2015.