Why Ruth loves teaching

The National People
Ruth Yawijah with her father Rev Yawijah Tuguya, her youngest son Freeman Yawijah and daughter Faith Yawijah who recently sat for Grade 12 national examination last week.

By JAMES GUMUNO
RUTH Yawijah is happy to be a teacher because it puts her in a position to change the lives of children.
“Teaching is a noble profession and I love teaching. I am satisfied with my job as a teacher when I see many of my former students working in different fields.”
The mother of four sons and a daughter from Fugwa village in the Koroba-Kopiago district of Hela knows what it is like to live and work in remote places in the highlands region.
As the daughter of a Wesleyan Church pastor, she and her five siblings had to travel to wherever dad Pastor Yawijah Tuguya and mum Yale Yawijah were posted. And now as a teacher for 34 years, she has served in schools in some of the remote areas of the highlands provinces.
Ruth, 52, is the second eldest in a family of six. She has three brother and two sisters.
Both her parents now in their late 80s and 90s are still living. They were the first couple to be married in a church when the Wesleyan Church was established in Fugwa village in 1961. They underwent pastoral training in1970 at the Tuguru Wesleyan Bible College in Pangia, Southern Highlands. Some of the remote areas they were posted to were Waposali in the Kagua-Erave district which shares the border with Gulf and Chimbu, Tuguru in Pangia and in Koroba.
Ruth attended the Tuguru Community School from 1973 to 1978 up to Grade Six. She as among the few who passed the Grade Six national examination and selected to attend the Mendi High School where she completed Grade Seven to Grade 10 from 1979 to 1982.
She loves teaching and underwent training at the Dauli Teachers College in Hela.
“I thank God for answering my prayers to serve children and educate them.”
Ruth received a Certificate in Primary Education in 1985 and was posted the next year to the Birop Primary School in Upper Mendi. She returned to Koroba in 1986 to teach at the Fugwa Primary School. She returned to Tuguru in 1987.
In 1990, she flew to Waposali where her father was working as a pastor to start a new community school. It was later named the Yawijah Community School after her father.
In 1998, she pursued a diploma in primary education programme and the next year became headmistress of Mendi International School.
In 2000, she became headmistress of Ramu International School in Madang where she taught for two years. She also got married that year to a Western Highlander. The eldest of her five children is now a policeman.
She taught at the Tarangau Primary School in Hagen Central from 2003 to 2007, then at Hagen United from 2008 to 2015. She has been teaching at Hagen Tee Primary School since 2016.

“ I thank God for answering my prayers to serve children and educate them.”

She thanks the Government for including religion instruction in the school curriculum.
She plans to return to Waposali in 2022 to teach where she started before hanging up her pen and books. She wants to spend time with her grandchildren.
“I am happy that I made some contribution and change lives of many people.”