Primary school teachers in Vanimo, West Sepik Province, have concluded a week-long exercise on module two of the Standard Based Curriculum (SBC) Mathematics for Junior Primary (G3-G5) teachers.
The program falls under the ‘Boosting Education Standards Together (BEST) PNG’ project, this is part of the trainings taking place at 37 cluster locations in 17 districts across provinces.
Seventeen teachers attended the training at the Vanimo cluster. Benny Afo is a Grade 4 teacher at Yilui Primary School.
The school has grades 3-7 with 5 teachers teaching there and over 250 students, Yilui Primary is in a remote area of the province where there is no access to communication and transport.
Travel in and out of the school is quite costly and takes about close to a week. Still Afo, who is from Yilui himself, is keen to serve his people and community.
“This training is important because I want to make sure that my students must understand and think mathematically so they know how to apply maths in their daily lives,” he stated.
Albina Urum, who also attended the training, teaches Grade 3 at Dapu Primary School; a few minute-drive east of Vanimo town.
“I’ve learnt so much about doing assessments and how to assess children using the syllabus in line with the teachers’ guide, textbook and the teacher manual,” she outlined.
The training aims to equip teachers in using SBC materials in supporting their planning, teaching and assessment of students in mathematics.
It also focuses on a problem-solving approach for teachers to get students to understand and be interested to learn mathematics as well as arms the teachers with the knowledge to return to their schools and share these learnings with their colleagues.
The implementation of the BEST PNG project is led by the Department of Education in partnership with the provincial departments of education, and funded by the Global Partnership for Education.
Save the Children is the grant agent for this project.