'austraLasia' # 466
SALESIAN STEPS IN WHEN MINISTER RESIGNS
Fiji's 'corporate education plan' launched by SDB
SUVA: 16th March -- In an extraordinary turn of events in an equally extraordinary 48 hours of political chaos, a Salesian launched Fiji's 'Year of Breakthrough', the 2001 corporate plan for the Ministry of Education.
The event had been significant enough in the planning anyway. The Ministry of Education, aware of the uncertainty, divisions and other pitfalls of the immediate few days cented on the 'ides of March' 2001 in Fiji, had asked Fr. Julian Fox if he could address the Ministry on the matter of educational leadership. This address was to incorporate an opening prayer of dedication suitable for Muslims, Hindus and Christians, and an address on the said topic. The then Interim Minister for Education, the Honourable Nailisoni Delailomaloma, was to take over at this point and award members of the Ministry for tasks well done, and launch the corporate blueprint.
But the past 48 hours have seen the nation go through three Prime Ministers - then, last night, the Cabinet resigned and the Minister for Education this morning handed in his car and his keys and cleared his desk. He walked out as I walked in! So that left the guest of honour with the quinella - to invoke the blessing of the The Almighty, address the assembled hundreds on leadership, launch the plan, present the Awards, and say grace before the luncheon.
Steering paths through the prejudice and political posturing of the past few weeks makes an interesting challenge. As someone interested in language in a multiethnic society, I began with the thought that 'they don't speak like us, therefore they aren't like us, therefore they don't like us' is a kind of logical slide educators the world over must deny....and then threaded a way through the history of words and phrases like 'discipline', 'vocation' and 'pastoral care' to arrive at the realisation that we must not only watch the words we use, but where they come from. Eventually, I located the heart of educational leadership in pastoral love - without being too theological about that! What I did say is that 'pastoral care' is all the ways a community intentionally sponsors the awakening, the sharpening, the rectifying, the healing, the growth in and for vocation of persons and the community. As true for the office as it's true for the school? As true for the (absent) Minister as it's true for the minions!
By 3.00 p.m. in the afternoon, the Minister had been re-sworn into office as the now Caretaker Minister for Education but, sadly, the luncheon had just finished!
