Education blog

It is time Fiji citizens take swimming classes seriously and make an effort to learn, considering the island nation’s locality being surrounded by sea and the number of incidents recorded by authorities.

Official figures released on Friday showed that more than 555 people in Fiji have drowned in the past 11 years and 25 of them died in the last six months.

What was also of concern is that 35 percent of the 500 victims were school children.

Fiji’s Education Minister Filipe Bole has raised concern in the local media over the figures as the school holiday approaches when many adults allow children to go swimming with friends unsupervised.

He called on parents and guardians to be more alert and to exercise more caution to avoid mishaps.

Statistics from the Fiji Police Force, released on Friday, show that for the last 11 years 128 children under the age of 10 died from drowning and 64 others between 11 and 17 years.

Bole said that parents should enroll their children in swimming classes and to ensure that they accompany their children to picnics.

In most villagers in Fiji, children automatically learn how to swim as they usually bathe in rivers.

However, in urban areas parents have to take the initiative to enroll their children in swimming classes or they will definitely miss out on a skill necessary in a country surrounded by ocean.