Minister & Deputy Minister of Education with Sue @ Studio Opening

Minister of Education & CEO Fiji Telecom with Sue @ Studio Opening

Brian Makes Final Adjustments to the Studio

Sue Introduces Teachers to REACT

Teacher's First REACT Lesson

This is Interesting!

I Can See Them!

Connecting Schools

Getting to Know You!

A Close-Up of Connected Schools

Students @ School

Nasinu Students

In June 2009, the Ministry of Education in Fiji established an Interactive Distance Learning (IDL) studio in the capital city of Suva suburb of Nasinu.  The studio was designed and commissioned by M & S Consultants and tailored to work over the existing satellite and terrestrial networks.  The REACT IDL software provides the platform for the lesson delivery.

Starting as a pilot project including three remote schools, the success has seen the project expanded to 5 schools at the start of the 2010 school year with 35 more in the pipeline.

Although only a relatively small island country, Fiji faces many challenges in educating their students living in isolated locations.  The establishment of the IDL studio will overcome some of these challenges.

One such challenge is that whilst there are many schools in remote and isolated locations, small schools only have a small number of teachers who cannot possibly teach a wide spectrum of subjects.  In addition, limited funding for the teachers and the difficulty in attracting teachers to these locations sees specialist teachers concentrated in the city and large towns.

Teachers of specialist or advanced subjects such as the sciences and maths already teaching in Suva can now attend the IDL studio and deliver lessons to the students in these remote and isolated locations.

The establishment of the studio and the deployment of REACT provides many benefits to the students, teachers and the Ministry.  These include:

• a greater scope of education for students
• a greater access to expert teachers for students
• an inbuilt technology education for students and teachers
• a flexible, interactive and collaborative way for teachers to engage students
• an efficient use of teachers as a resource for the Ministry
• enabling the Ministry to meet and exceed their goals for education

Using REACT and the exsisting satellite network,  teachers are now able to deliver lessons to secondary school students living in remote and isolated locations in Fiji.  In addition to the integrated video and audio of the highest quality, they also have a fully interactive and collaborative technology providing a plethora of teaching tools at their fingertips.

Distance education in Fiji is now limited only by the imagination of the teachers....