Gaulim Teachers’ College

Take a left out of Kokopo and you begin to wind your way up into the hills of the Gazelle Peninsula, quite quickly the landscape changes from a small coastal town to rural villages hidden amongst masses of vegetation, roadside market stalls and a consistent flow of people going ‘walk about’ on the roadside. After about 20 minutes you have climbed your way up onto a ridge which looks over to the Baining Hills (See background picture of blog). The view is stunning; on a clear day you get a 180 degree view of the valley and the mountains stretching right up to the sea in the north. You slowly make your way up to 4 Way Junction, so called because it is one of the only ones on East New Britain, and after taking a left you descend down the other side of the ridge and across the valley passing over Toli, Taulil and Baining land (3 main cultural groups of ENB) until the sealed road ends and you begin the last few kilometres down a bumpy dirt track to Gaulim Teachers College.

The view from our balcony

 Gaulim from the air

 

Our college is one of the more rural locations for primary teacher training in the country. The student population has increased dramatically this year, in response to the demand from the government for 5000 new teacher graduates each year. The diploma course takes two years of full-time study, but it’s often mentioned in conferences and workshops we’ve attended that this is a very short time to fit the training within. Student teachers train in the core subjects such as Maths, Science, Language (English), Professional Studies and PE as well as other courses such as Community Development, Agriculture and Aids Awareness. The school curriculum over here serves two purposes. (1) To educate students who will go on to further studies or employment and (2) to equip students with the knowledge and skills to live a sustainable life within a village community. Life in PNG is still very simple (for better of a word). Many families live off their own produce and live comfortably within their means in a rural village. The curriculum acknowledges this and therefore aims to educate students in this way of life.

Gaulim Teachers College (GTC) was built in the 1970s, and by all accounts the infrastructure has not been updated since. Apart from a new (2003) ‘state of the art’ ICT room the facilities and buildings are quite poor and in need of some major renovations. The current administration seem to be putting some money into this with new roofs being added to some of the classrooms and a new generator installed which offers power during the frequent and often long lasting black outs. Our college is compact, with a classroom block (10), dining hall (mess) and chapel alongside the male and female dormitories.  It has a large sports field and staff housing scattered around the outskirts of the grounds. Gaulim is run by the United Church, originally it was the Methodists who acquired the land and set up the college, later to be taken on by the United Church (we think this is an Anglican/Methodist mix).

The classroom blocks at Gaulim

Some may say Gaulim is run down, and I guess it is, I did fall through the floor boards in my first week on the job! However, there is something quite charming about it that gives it a very pleasant character. It could be that it is situated among a local community which gives it a very ‘homely’ type feel, it might also be how isolated it is, making it very relaxed and peaceful.

The students at Gaulim are amazing; they come from all over the country and from all walks of life, with some coming straight out of high school, and others mature students. For many of the student teachers, following this path was not a choice they made independently with many being sent and paid for by their community, meaning the pressure to succeed is massive. Others have got scholarships and the rest are self-funded. Overall we have found that the students put so much effort into their work and take immense pride in their achievements as well as the college life. The effort they put into some of their projects in incredible, they had an art display last weekend and every classroom had been decked out in decorations and set up as market stalls holding all sorts of art work as well as traditional artefacts, it really was a spectacular sight. 

 Some of the students' displays at their art show

 Sports oval

 

Opening of the new boys pit toilet

 

The musical talent at the college is also fantastic. Students are often practising for church services and the songs they sing are wonderfully harmonised, and sung both in English and Tok Pisin. Several of the students play guitar or a band instrument, and everyone seems to get involved in the beautiful singing here. Our house is surrounded by the sounds of guitars strumming and groups singing, day and night. On a recent bus journey with students from Milne Bay we were treated to traditional songs of the province by an all-male chorus, as we wound up the hilly roads at sunset. It was magical.

Most of the staff live on campus, as we now also do, and there is a small local market which offers mainly bananas, betel nut, and local ‘packed lunches’ wrapped in banana leaves. Early (4am) on a Saturday morning the market grows and you can get a great variety of fresh fruit and vegetables there.  Living on campus gives us a great sense of community, the local people, students, lecturers and their families are all really friendly and always looking out for us. The other day I started digging a hole for our rubbish burning and by the end I had more people wanting to help me than I did shovels, and I eventually wasn’t allowed to do any of the labour. We have been given a patch of land to start a vegetable garden on, no doubt we will have plenty of helpers and advice coming our way.

Our humble abode

Living at a teachers’ college is giving us a great insight into an education community here in PNG as well as learning about the local community. We feel very privileged in our placement and the opportunities we are having.