Early Childhood Education comes to remote Baimuru
You’ll find the village of Baimuru in the delta region of Gulf Province. Accessible via a four-hour dinghy ride across the Coral Sea then upriver from the provincial capital of Kerema, you’ll find plenty of mangroves, fish, crabs and prawns in Baimuru, and possibly the odd crocodile. What you won’t often find is a teacher training program dedicated to Early Childhood Education (ECE).
KTF and the Gulf Provincial Department of Education (PDoE) have been working together since 2020 as part of the Teach for Tomorrow, the Early Years (T4TEY) project to develop to develop an ECE program framework and teacher upskilling program that delivers quality education to children in their vital, early formative years. Together, in partnership with PDoEs, trainers and KTF’s network of teachers are working to introduce this critically important layer of education into PNG’s schooling system, focusing on areas that are remote and rural; and often excluded from educational support and strengthening opportunities. Like Baimuru.
T4TEY develops and pilots bespoke and tailored in-service teacher upskilling and ongoing professional development program to existing elementary teachers in rural areas. The project is enabling elementary teachers to transition their skill set to deliver specialist, child-centred, age-appropriate learning to children aged three to five years, introducing the new ECE layer to the PNG schooling system.
The recent training workshops were delivered by three Gulf teacher trainers who had attended the T4TEY training delivered by KTF in June 2021, and employing a train-the-trainer model, on-delivered to 11 teachers from the Baimuru region in February.
Feedback from the teachers indicated that "the training and information delivered was an eye opener" according to Kikori Trainer and Provincial Education Adviser, Nellie Owamu. Teachers in the region had not attended training in over seven years and were very happy to be able to build their professional skills, thanking KTF for bringing the workshop right to their door.
The T4TEY program is not only about delivering age-appropriate learning to young minds but creating purpose-built classroom environment for that learning to happen.
Together, the trainers, teachers, builders, parents, and community members built the resources tailored to the early years, including swing sets, sand pits, cupboards, and outdoor and indoor learning spaces. Poor weather didn’t stop the progress; when rain halted construction, the parents completed that after the training team departed.
We’re looking forward to seeing the little minds of Baimuru bloom with the guidance of their dedicated teachers.
Teach for Tomorrow, the Early Years is delivered in partnership with the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) with the support of consortia of corporate partners in Australia and PNG.
