2016-06-14
FIJI
Four teachers to join Marist school for children with learning disabilities
A school in Fiji for children with learning disabilities and young people who have struggled to fit into mainstream schooling will be receiving four new teachers this month to teach its 125 students.
The Marist Champagnat Institute, or MCI, which currently has 23 teachers, opened 16 years ago as a school for post primary students aged 13 and above with learning difficulties and special needs.
The school’s infrastructure, built mainly from funds received from donors, includes ramps to accommodate students on wheelchairs.
Subjects taught at the school include literacy, numeracy, art, cooking, sewing, physical education, religious education, woodwork, agriculture and engineering.
“MCI will soon be classified as an inclusive school by the government, I hope,” remarked the school’s principal, Francis Varea. “The type of education offered at MCI is guided and supported among other documents by Fiji’s inclusive education policy, which only came about in 2012.”
Francis explained that agriculture is one of the programmes that most students are involved in and that “all vocational programmes support enterprise education which is aligned to the education ministry policy of enterprise education.”
At its completion, students are encouraged to return to mainstream schools or undertake a further two years of vocational training
“Hopefully, more partners will come on board to help the school grow, not necessarily in numbers, but more so in the programmes and infrastructure,” stated Francis.
“Champagnat Marists must be ready to continue the good work of the Marist Brothers in Fiji,” he affirmed.
