World Teacher's Day: Mr Bob's dedication

We are thrilled to tell you an inspiring story of Yap Mafan a dedicated teacher for over 20 years to celebrate this special day.

The theme for World Teachers' Day 2020 is “Teachers: Leading in Crisis, Reimagining the Future”.

Yap Mafan or Mr Bob as he is known to his students, is an Elementary 2 teacher at Gunasu Elementary School in Nawaeb district in the Morobe Province.

In 2001 Mr Bob trained as an Elementary Teacher and in 2005 was registered as a teacher. In that same year, Gunasu Elementary School became a registered school and Mr Bob was posted to uptake his first teaching role there.

Here began Mr Bob’s teaching legacy and this is where we find him almost twenty years later, still committed and dedicated to teaching the students of Gunasu Elementary.

Most teachers in Gunasu Elementary live within the school grounds. Mr Bob is a 20-minute walk away. He has been rising early each morning and arrives at the school to prepare for his classes each day without fail, a routine he has been undertaking for the past 2 decades.

When asked why he is still teaching 20 years later, Mr Bob said: “I have a heart for children and as the world moves forward I want the children in my community to also move forward, to do great things, and one day become great people.”

In his 20 years of teaching, Mr Bob has seen so many changes, the most notable change for him was the shift from the Outcome Base Education (OBE) to the Standard Base Curriculum (SBC) in the education system in Papua New Guinea in 2015.

Mr Bob notes that when the transition was made to SBC in 2015, it was a very challenging year for him as he was not a fluent English speaker. Having been so used to and accustomed to teaching in the local vernacular, he had to quickly become fluent in English, and rewrite his teaching modules.

“Most of us had no experience in teaching in English. And the new curriculum (SBC) Curriculum was too broad and we were not able to break it down and understand,” recollects Mr Bob of the early years in 2015. 

‘I personally cannot thank World Vision enough, because in 2017 they introduced me to the Bilum Books student and teacher resources. The training they provided immensely assisted our teachers to grasp teaching concepts, techniques and learn English to teach our students under the new SBC curriculum” said Mr Bob.

Bilum Books were part of the literacy component of the Together for Education (T4E) intervention in T4E’s Phase 1. Teachers were supplied Bilum Books which are structured programs that train teachers on techniques to teach children to read better. The Bilum Books consist of the ‘Bilum Teachers Guide’ for the teachers and the ‘Bilum Textbook’ for the students.  

“With the Bilum Books, we were equipped to teach properly. In the past we didn’t have speaking and listening, writing, reading and comprehension and phonics. When World Vision taught us how to use the Bilum Books, we started using them as resources to teach and almost immediately I recognised the changes in my students. They started to read better, write well and where before, the students would speak English in grade 3 or 4, they also started speaking English at Elementary 1 stage.” remarked Mr Bob.

The Together for Education team taught the teachers at Gunasu Elementary how to create and use the School Learning Improvement Plan (SLIP). Prior to the Teacher Training Intervention, creating lesson plans was very time consuming and stressful, following the training, by T4E, Mr Bob and Gunasu teachers are more comfortable creating lesson plans.   

Mr Bob is one of 705 teachers that will be receiving Teachers Training in phase two of the T4E project.

“I appreciate the work of the World Vision team. They have taught me a lot. After two decades of teaching, the T4E trainings have motivated me to teach another 20,” beamed a very proud and happy Mr Bob.

During the COVID 19 outbreak Together for Education also conducted awareness on the pandemic among its intervention schools. Gunasu Elementary was one of the schools that awareness was conducted in.

The Together for Education Project is supported by the Australian Government through the PNGAusPartnership program.

Story by Geraldine Kalabai

Pictures by Steven Doe