The French Polynesian president Edouard Fritch has thanked the visiting French education minister and the French state for the financial assistance towards sustaining the territory's education sector.
In a speech to seal a new convention between the two sides, Mr Fritch noted that Paris contributed $US 600 million a year to pay for 5,000 staff - a sum which he says amounts to about half of his government's budget.
The French Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem signs convention with French Polynesian President Edouard Fritch Photo: French Polynesia's Presidency
The minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem who is the first French education minister to visit French Polynesia, announced an additional $US six million towards the cost of expanding three boarding schools and undertook to pay for IT-gear.
She told local media that Tahiti was France which prompted the pro-independence opposition to call on the minister to change policy and make Tahitian an official language from pre-school onward.
Mr Fritch said his government doesn't have the means to pay for all education, adding that he knows of no other colonial state that would invest so much in its citizens at the end of the world.
