Football will now be part of the curriculum in primary schools after the Fiji Football Association and the Ministry of Education signed a Memorandum of Understanding last Saturday.

MOU was signed by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, Minster for Education Hon. Aseti Radrodro, and FFA President Rajesh Patel for Football for Schools program.

The purpose of this MOU is to enable both Parties to join forces and work together to invest in the potential of our young children in Fiji with the help of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (‘FIFA’) Football for Schools Program (‘F4S’).

Football for Schools (F4S) is an ambitious programme run by FIFA, in collaboration with UNESCO, which aims to contribute to the education, development and empowerment of around 700 million children. It seeks to make football more accessible to both boys and girls around the world by incorporating football activities into the education system, in partnership with relevant authorities and stakeholders.

The programme has been designed to promote targeted life skills and competencies through football and contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other priorities.

The F4S Programme is guided by a results-based management framework and theory of change, which assumes that developing intrapersonal, interpersonal and cognitive skills amongst learners, in addition to producing gains in knowledge and positive attitudes, will help them to develop life skills and competencies. If this is done within an enabling, inclusive and caring environment that promotes individual learning and development, along with a combination of football and life skills, the programme has the potential to contribute to individual and community change and consequently to the identified SDGs.