Opposing policies will affect some education initiatives brought in by the current government if the Social Democratic and Liberal Party forms the next government.
For years the Fijian government was giving out race based scholarships.
For the itaukei scholarships, the main criteria was that the applicant had to be a itaukei or Rotuman.
The other scholarship system was the Multi Ethnic scholarships which were only given to Indo Fijians and the minority community.
The qualifying marks and salary levels of parents for both categories were also different.
Starting from this year, the current government decided that race based scholarships should be abolished and scholarship awards should be based on merit.
This resulted in the setting up of the National Toppers Scheme.
The government has also set up the Tertiary Loan Scheme which has given many people the opportunity to pursue further education after completing secondary education.
Prime Minister, Rear Admiral Voreqe Bainimarama said the race based scholarship programme is a divided way of looking at building national capacity.
Bainimarama said more Fijian youth than ever before now have access to tertiary education under the new toppers scholarship and Government loan scheme.
The Prime Minister said to revert to the old system would rob so many students around the country of the opportunity to pursue their dreams with a university education.
Bainimarama said the previous system lacked transparency where people accessed scholarships depending many times on who you were or who you knew.
However SODELPA's senior official, Doctor Tupeni Baba stressed that SODELPA will not change it's stand as the new system has not been approved by an elected parliament.
Fiji Labour Party Leader, Mahendra Chaudhry is in Australia and could not be reached for a comment on whether the FLP holds the same stance as SODELPA.
The National Federation Party said they will discuss this issue in their AGM next Saturday.
The People's Democratic Party's Interim President, Adi Sivia Qoro said people should have been consulted before the changes.
Story by: Vijay Narayan
