Visit to Sacred Heart International Catholic School in Vunapope, April 2024

by Claire van Bakel · 16/07/2024

A school visit.

by Sandy Miller

It was an unexpected privilege to make a school visit during our trip to PNG in April 2024. Andrea Williams, assisted by Dame Sandra Lau, coordinated a visit for a few of us to the Sacred Heart International Catholic School, and Mary Immaculate Catholic Primary school in Vunapope.

We arrived on a day when most of the students, except Year 8, were unable to attend because of a toilet block problem. But as someone who works in a school, and this was my second visit to PNG, it was still a fascinating glimpse into the PNG education system.

Our first stop was, in fact, a staff room, where the staff were using the mainly pupil-free day to hand-make class resources. I recognised very familiar phonics type posters, which in Australia we purchase or print off without a thought and laminate. The staff, however, were painstakingly hand-printing and drawing beautiful illustrations. For instance: ‘C…c…c… C is for coconut. A coconut tree is tall.’ There were syllabus textbooks but clearly a lack of the necessary quantity, and again staff were making posters with reading information on science, history, etc.

We visited a classroom with the year 8 students, and they seemed happy to share what they were working on; it was so interesting to have a look through their workbooks. There is obviously a range of ages in the year group, and I didn’t really ascertain why. The school starting age is gazetted at six or seven years, but there seemed to be an age range of 14-17 in year 8. Nonetheless, what immediately struck me was how good the standard seemed. Neat writing, good spelling and very recognisable topics. Looking at teacher charts on the walls, there were classroom expectations and behaviour charts. Students received a cross for being late, out of uniform, swearing, etc… a couple of kids had crosses against their names for ‘escaping from the classroom’; not how we manage poor behaviour choices in NSW schools, but teachers obviously face similar challenging issues in schools wherever children are.

The PNG syllabus mandates that children are taught English for at least an hour a day from Prep school, and this increases from there. These year 8 students all speak at least three languages: their local language (given there are 832 living languages in PNG), Tok Pisin (their lingua franca form of Melanesian Pidgin English) and English. It seemed remarkable to me, however, that they were working on topics such as the water cycle or the American Revolution with such competent written English skills.

The senior classrooms were in a fairly modern building, but the Elementary (K-2) classrooms were very simple, with earth floors, wooden seating and blackboards. It seems an absolute credit to the teaching staff that the children still seem to learn regardless of a very basic environment.

After our tour, the students gave us a wonderful concert, singing and playing guitars. We donated money and some resources we had brought from Australia as a thank-you for the opportunity to visit their school.

Nelson Mandela said: ‘Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world,’ and although I think Sacred Heart is probably a more well-resourced school than many, it really felt like a positive experience knowing that there are increasing educational opportunities in PNG.