There is no policy within the Ministry of Education preventing Schools from inviting whomever they wish to attend school events.
The Education Ministry says upon investigation, it was found that a Ministry of Education Civil servant acted unilaterally without ministerial or permanent secretary’s approval.
The Ministry says there was no directive issued by the Ministry or the Permanent Secretary for Education that Sitiveni Rabuka should be banned from attending the school event.
SODELPA Leader Sitiveni Rabuka had earlier told Fijivillage that the Education Ministry instructed the Principal of Thomas Baker Memorial School in Navosa to cancel his invitation to be the chief guest at their prize giving ceremony on Thursday.
Rabuka claims that this decision had denied him the opportunity to acknowledge the deeds of a great man of Navosa, Ratu Simione Drole, who was the first teacher to teach in Rabuka’s village school Drekeniwai District School when it was opened in 1927.
He says they have close links with the school.
Rabuka said another important reason he accepted the invitation was to acknowledge the work of Reverend Thomas Baker and his assistant Reverend Jesse Carrey in the conversion of the people of Navatu in 1860 in their original fortified village of Koroniyasaca before they moved to Drekeniwai as directed by the Colonial Government.
