TEACHER Bonita Amepou believes that early childhood education and development is important. And if everyone can contribute to raising basic literacy standards in the communities through sustainable community early childhood programmes, then children could be prepared for effective learning in primary schools. Amepou, 40, from Mekeo in Central and Tanggu in Bogia, Madang, is a single parent to her three children. Her eldest daughter is a person with disability, her second son is studying at Don Bosco Technical School in Chimbu and her youngest is in grade eight at Holy Spirit Primary in Madang. “My family has a generation of educators,” she said. “My paternal great uncle, Br Peter Keanga, from Enegfa in Mekeo, a great teacher, was also the first De La Salle Brother for PNG and the Solomon Islands.
“He was the president of the PNG Teachers Association till his passing in 1987. “My maternal grandfather, late Philip Barang was the first early childhood teacher and catechist trained by Catholic Missionaries in the 1950s.” Amepou said her mother was also a very passionate international school teacher. She taught in the International Education Agency since 1980 which was called multi-cultural schools at that time, upon her retirement in 2015. “It was my mum that actually inspired and molded me into what I am today,” she said. “She was my first teacher and we continue to share a lot in the field of education. “I also taught for 15 years in private international schools before deciding to help my mum set up our own learning centre, Phil’s Jolly Learning Centre named after my late grandfather. “I had leading roles in some of these schools that actually introduced different international curriculums, concepts and the best approaches to learning from early childhood through to primary learning. “I was privileged enough to be mentored by some of the best international school principals and facilitators from Australia, United Kingdom and South Africa. “It was in 2014, that I was recognised as PNGs first Jolly Phonics professional trainer. “I was then invited to the United Kingdom in 2015 to attend my first jolly phonics conference where I met other international trainers and the owner of Jolly Learning Publishers, Christopher Jolly.” Amepou then returned to the country to start the Jolly Phonics pilot programme in partnership with the Education Department, provincial education departments and jolly learning. The pilot programme had contributed to the adaption of jolly phonics in the current standard based curriculum. “Since then, I have conducted numerous jolly phonics trainings for teachers, parents and school administrators around the country to help raise awareness and the concept of raising literacy standards using the programme,” she said. “One major programme which my mum and I partnered in delivering was the establishment of early childhood centres in local communities which were regarded as community sustainable projects.” The vision to have those schools set up was to address three important issues: AVAILABILITY of learning in the communities, to enable children to attend school without the challenges of transport and long distance issues; EMPOWER community youth; and, RAISE literacy standards, acknowledging that PNG has a high illiteracy rate. Amepou believed that training volunteers to teach the Jolly Phonics programme in local communities was one way to help raise literacy standards. “This programme enabled the youth to actually contribute to their community meaningfully,” she said. “We have, so far, helped establish over 50 early childhood centres and trained over 100 volunteers in the rural districts of Madang alone. “In my opinion, the biggest challenge we have in the field of education is the lack of improvements to the delivery of our curriculum. “Programmes like Jolly Phonics that has been adopted into the current Standard-Based Curriculum has not been carefully detailed for implementation and there is no availability of resources to teach accordingly. “Moreover, almost all school administrators and teachers are not familiar with the programme hence literacy rates have not improved over the years. “Having stated this, jolly phonics is a globally validated literacy programme introduced as ‘the world’s leading literacy programme’. “If we can deliver the programme effectively starting now in the early childhood education and development area, then we will be seeing improvement and change. “The new 1-6-6 education structure for most provinces except Morobe, introduces the concept of early childhood education and development which is another important area of concern. “Many non-government organisations, churches and universities such as the University of Goroka deliver different early childhood curriculums. “If we are to deliver a bar of standards in our curriculum, then there has to be a standard approach to all teaching ideas, programmes and materials. “Unification of the early childhood curriculum must be evident. “I will be pleased to introduce an effective early childhood curriculum that has delivered exceptional results for our rural early childhood schools and Phil’s Jolly Learning Centre.” The National / PNG Education news Comments are closed.
|
: Get Free Webpage for your School. Send us your School Profile now
>> STUDY IN PNG Follow PNG Online School |