Fiji

Fiji Times on Line
School Into Child Care
(Saturday, October 01, 2005)

A TERTIARY institute dedicated towards the further education of youths has now branched out into a new business concept to ensure the proper care of Fiji's younger generations.

New Zealand Pacific Training Centre, which was established in 1994, to provide school leavers with training in information technology and business, has now introduced a childcare program to ensure all children above the age of three months received the proper care that would enhance and protect their development.

Introduced as part of a restructure of the institute's operations, the childcare program that would now be offered at its ten centres throughout Fiji is aimed at eliminating the problems regarding child safety currently being experienced by parents.

NZPTC general manager, Sinu Ingham said they had decided to introduce the innovative idea as a result of the tragic and avoidable accidents that children in the country have been involved in, recently.

Mrs Ingham said the centre was determined to introduce the new program because at the moment there was no proper training with regards to early childcare being provided by any institution in the country.

"In Fiji, the only training provided for such care is for teachers in kindergartens and primary schools. We at NZPTC want to go beyond that and proper training for care of children from above the age of three months," she said.

"Apart from providing the training, we would also be setting up centres that would give parents a safe and secure place to leave their kids when they are involved in other activities like work."

"We believe if people are trained on the proper care of children at a very young age such tragedies like that which happened in Vatukoula would not be repeated," she said.

Mrs Ingham said while the centre was beginning a program on childcare, they were also looking at the possibility of introducing another program on aged care in the near future.

She said under the restructure, operations at NZPTC were being smoothened to ensure all services were more customer-oriented rather than service oriented.

She said previously operations at NZPTC's two other outlets, Australia Pacific Tertiary Institute (APTI) and Australia Pacific Computer Consultant, were run separately.

However, under the restructure the general manager and management board would manage all operations of both organisations including the childcare services department. Mrs Ingham said the centre's restructure was conducted as a necessity to cope with the increasing demand for its services.