Aust projects helping locals to achieve

RYAN Piamba from Middle Ramu in Madang enjoys playing soccer and likes to help his mother with simple household chores like fetching water and collecting firewood.
He says: “My favourite subjects are maths and English because I want to become a pilot.
“I want to become a pilot because I want to fly and see different places.”
The Australian government through two projects with World Vision is helping children like Piamba realise their dreams.
The cheerful 13-year-old attends Kwanga Primary School in the Middle Ramu district of Madang and is in grade three.
Kwanga Primary is a beneficiary of Access to Learning and Literacy (ALL) project implemented through the Australian NGO Cooperation Programme (ANCP). ALL aims to increase the literacy rates and access to elementary and primary school-aged children in three provinces, including Madang.
At Kwanga Elementary another project supported by the Papua New Guinea-Australia partnership is helping to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for boys and girls.
T4E is implemented by World Vision and its partners in three districts of Madang.
Ryan’s father Raymond Piamba said: “Ryan could not read previously but when the programme from World Vision was introduced last year, my child started reading and speaking English.”

“ I want to become a pilot because I want to fly and see different places.”

He said in previous years most students did not continue from elementary to primary level but this had changed.
“I’m very happy that these changes are happening at our elementary school in Kwanga. I feel that it is important that we work together with World Vision for the sake of our children as they are our future”.
T4E and ALL support teaching and learning in selected elementary and primary schools in Madang by providing teacher training and mentoring, including provision of English story books and readers. These books contain colourful pictures and reflect everyday life and culture in PNG, making it easy for children like Ryan to learn to read and enjoy the stories. Ryan now loves reading and his passion for learning has increased.
Results from a recent survey conducted by the T4E project in targeted elementary schools in the province showed improvements in students’ reading.
After one year of implementation, there was a 36 per cent improvement in elementary children’s ability to read simple English and understand mathematics word problems.
Peter Atau, the elementary coordinator and trainer for Middle Ramu Ddstrict, says that before the project, many teachers did not have sufficient skills and knowledge to support children’s learning.
When T4E project commenced in 2018, it provided opportunities for elementary teachers to improve their understanding of how to teach the standards-based curriculum and use different methods of teaching literacy and numeracy. “The biggest impact in the district is that we have established reading clubs and children have a lot of reading books. We also have school learning improvement plans for our elementary schools,” Atau said.
He added that before the project students’ did not meet required reading standards.
“After the interventions, I saw that there was a big change, children could read better without a teacher guiding them.”
Atau said it was his responsibility to monitor the reading clubs and assess teacher performance in the classroom as well as the progress of children’s learning. He planned to continue the role after the project ended to ensure that teachers continued implementing what they had learnt.
“I really appreciate what World Vision has done because I have learnt a lot from them within a year,” Atau said.
Manu Peter, the education programme manager in Madang said they conducted awareness on the importance of early childhood education for parents and caregivers.
He said although the T4E project did not target primary schools, it complemented what the ALL project was doing.
“The three main focus areas of both projects are: Creating awareness of the need for quality inclusive education; providing training for teachers and school boards of management and providing resource materials for children’s reading and teacher guides for teachers. These resources will help teachers improve their teaching which will result in in improvements in students’ learning in the classroom.”
Ryan and other children in Kwanga and the surrounding communities of Middle Ramu now enjoy going to school. Ryan is excited and hopes to achieve his dream of becoming a pilot one day.

• Picture and words supplied by Christina Muge Communication Officer World Vision (PNG)