On the 24 of March, the Prime Minister issued a nation wide directive for everyone to stay at home during the Covid19 outbreak and limited public gatherings to 20 or less. On the 3rd of April the Prime Minister issued a lockdown order for the Suva area, an 8:00 PM to 5:00 AM curfew, and a ban on all public gathers. In turn, we received a directive from FHEC (Fiji Higher Education Commission) to "defer all face-to-face education and training." until the 17th of April. We had already shut down the school the week before because of the concern of exposure to the virus by our students who were having to use public transportation to reach the school from the outlying villages.
On April 17th we received an e-mail from the FHEC encouraging HEI’s (Higher Education Institutions) “to resume training operations from 20 April, 2020." Jason, Emosi, and I met on the 20th of April to work out a plan to reopen the school. Even though the Suva lockdown has been lifted, the 8:00 PM to 5:00 AM curfew remains in affect along with the no public gatherings rule. Nonetheless, the Fiji government has given us permission to restart our educational activities with the following “precautionary measures:”
Restricting face to face training of up to twenty individuals per class;
Maintaining physical distancing of at least two meters between individuals;
Limiting accessibility of external visitors to the premises; and
Practicing safe hygiene standards at HEI’s, by sanitizing training equipment and facilities and availing the use of hand sanitizers and hand wash soap to learners and staff.
Schools are encouraged to deliver training activities to students via online platform(s) whenever possible.
With these guidelines in mind, we have determined to take a twofold approach to reopening our program. Due to the generous donation of a couple from Killen, Alabama, we were able to purchase 10 Android Tablets which we plan to utilize in phase one.
Phase One: To finish out our first term which was interrupted by the Covid19 lockdown, we will record the classes on these tablets and distribute them to the students with their assignments. They will have one week to view the videos and complete their assignments, after which the assignments will be picked up and the next weeks videos and assignments delivered. Jason and I have begun working on recording the videos and Emosi will deliver them to our students beginning on the 2 of May. In this manner, we hope to complete our first term by May 18. We thought it good to work out the bugs with this approach in case there is a second wave of the virus, and we return to lockdown conditions.
Phase Two: Since the FHEC allows classes to meet with up to 20 individuals per class, we plan to return to the classroom under the above guidelines starting on the 19 of May. Because our original schedule has been disrupted we have had to significantly revise the schedule. We will have three Covid19 Terms divided into two week and three week increments with a single week break between terms. The two week terms represent our short courses and the three week terms our regular courses. As much as possible, we have scheduled our short courses in the 3rd term to provide the best window of opportunity for those teachers to come. International travel to Fiji has been banned at least through the end of May. Hopefully, travel restrictions will ease up by September and those who are still able to come at that time can do so. We have a contingency plan to cover any course where a visiting teacher is unable to come.
If we can stick to this plan, we should still be able to cover the courses and hours necessary for our second year students to graduate on the 31 October 2020. I am enclosing a copy of our revised schedule in PDF format.
Because of the Covid19 restrictions we have had to cancel our planned evangelistic efforts for the year. However, our students and faculty have been busy on their own visiting shut-ins and conducting Bible studies, resulting in at least three baptisms during the lockdown. One of the things that we have incorporated into our revised schedule is a one week practicum attached to Emosi’s class on Personal Evangelism. This class will include lectures and outside assignments where students will engage in tract distribution and setting up personal Bible studies.
We continually thank God for your interest, support, and prayers for the Bible Institute at Raiwaqa! May God bless you for your kindness!
Your Servants in Christ,
Rocco, Jason, and Emosi