A Fiji union leader says some indigenous Fijian students and their families will be better off to the tune of 900 US dollars this year under what he calls a racist policy that came into force this week.
The Fiji Teachers Union says it and other groups plan to take the Government to court over this policy and other education measures authorised under the 1997 Constitution.
Union leader Agni Deo Singh says all indigenous Fijian seventh form, or pre university, students are to receive completely free education this academic year, which began yesterday.
He says this will save them about 900 US dollars, and it's unfair.
"There could be an indigenous Fijian student who could be a son or a daughter of a chief executive officer earning 100,000 dollars. And there could be another student who comes from a non-Fijian family and is earning below the poverty line. This indigenous Fijian student would get completely free education while the other would not. The other would be at the mercy of a small allocation of remissions."
Mr Singh says the union will mount a legal challenge to the policy and an earlier initiative to provide special assistance and separate funding for schools managed by indigenous Fijians.
He says they amount to misuse of the constitution on a racial basis.