18 Oct 2004

Former Fiji deputy PM stresses education to develop national identity

4:34 pm on 18 October 2004

A former Fiji Cabinet Minister, Dr Tupeni Baba, who is now an academic with the Department of Pacific Studies at Auckland University, is calling for the education to be used to build a national identity in Fiji.

Dr Baba says the lack of such a national sense is one factor in the tensions in the country.

He says both main political parties are focussed just on their own communities and their separate school systems largely reinforce this.

"What is absent is really an attempt to build an education system that focusses on building national identity and building a national history - a sense of consciousness - that is absent. Because we have allowed the education system to just continue on with the assumption that with time it would develop, but over the years that has not developed."

Dr Baba is also advocating that a constitutional post be set up to help promote a national identity.