Teaching curriculum enriched

Islands, Normal
Source:

The National, Wednesday 04th September 2012

THE teaching curriculum of upper primary grades in New Britain is being enriched with the integration of issues like gender, peace-building and the rights of a child.
  Selected teachers have identified subjects in the curriculum to integrate the supplementary resources after attending workshops being conducted by non-government organisation, Live and Learn Inc.
The teachers have identified “making a living, personal development, community life, social science and expressive arts” as subjects that they can integrate with the rights, responsibilities, conflict, peace-building and gender issues.
Live and Learn Inc has been conducting a series of workshops focusing on strengthening children’s participation in peace building for teachers in upper primary grades from six to eight in East and West New Britain provinces.
Formal Education coordinator Siwa Matawe said the workshop was based on a research conducted last year with all education stakeholders and which showed there was a need to address issues like rights, responsibilities, conflict and peace building.
Matawe said they were using the Live and Learn developed curriculum material to train teachers through the workshops.
She said the workshops would enhance the qualities of teachers to draw children to them to share their problems with and for them to teach their students to understand their rights and responsibilities.
Matawe said the workshops covered topics like what was conflict and what was peace and building a peaceful society, gender and child rights.
She said s Live and Learn signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Education in June so the projects it was undertaking were recognised by the department.
The series of workshops began in East New Britain and is now being held in West New Britain, with the three facilitators – Siwa Matawe, Dulcie Mota and Marlin Delis – all from Live and Learn.
 The three-year project is being funded by European Union.
Following the workshop the teachers form a teachers reference group from which they will hold in-service programmes to disseminate information to other teachers and hold parents and citizens meeting to inform boards of managements and parents.
Kimbe’s Ruwango Primary School headmaster, Luke Bogne is the chairman of one of the Teachers Reference Group.
Bogne, who has been in the job for 26 years, said they were privileged to attend such a workshop as the topics and concepts presented were important and the knowledge gained had to be disseminated to the other teachers, students and parents and the wider community.