Kokoda Track Foundation (KTF) kicked off its ‘Teach for Tomorrow’ program on 7 November 2016 in both the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and Gulf Province. KTF is an international NGO that has been providing sustainable aid and development to rural communities for over 10 years now.
Earlier this year, KTF partnered with the PNG Education Institute and National Department of Education to embark on training the large number of partially trained elementary teachers that currently exist across the country. 330 elementary teachers have already graduated from the training conducted in Northern Province in September this year.
In charge of KTF’s training is Education Manager, Petra Arifeae, who said “The funding provided by KTF for Northern and Gulf Provinces and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville for the SIU Multi-grade mix mode training is timely because the trainee teachers in these provinces have been teaching on volunteer or baseline pay (approximately 25% of what they should have been paid at full certification level) for over 10 years now.”
“The training is vitally important as it enables these teachers to become fully accredited by the PNG Education Institute. This qualification will elevate these teachers onto their correct pay scale. Furthermore, it means that 188 schools in the region of AROB, 46 in Gulf and 330 in Northern will remain open next year giving access to elementary education for thousands of children in these provinces” said Ms Arifeae.
The training is currently in its second week in Gulf Province and AROB with the 46 elementary teachers in Gulf and 188 in AROB eagerly anticipating graduation and certification.
“We are so delighted to be co-facilitating this important training. When we were first alerted to the education crisis, we knew we had to step in and it has been a wonderful partnership between KTF, PNGEI and Provincial Departments of Education” said Dr Genevieve Nelson, CEO of KTF.
KTF gratefully acknowledges its key donors and funding partners; the Australian Aid Program via the Australian High Commission and Bougainville Copper Limited for the partnership in AROB; and the Prime Minister’s Department and general public in Australia for Gulf Province.
“There are still another 6,700 partially-trained elementary teachers right across the country who need to complete the Teach for Tomorrow program” said Dr Nelson. In 2017, we will be looking for new partners to enable us to take the 6-week training to as many other Provinces across PNG as we can”.
Source: Kokoda Track Foundation
