Education

Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel Scholarship Program

In 2010, the Foundation is giving scholarships to over 150 children in PNG to help them to attend school. Most parents living along the Track struggle to afford to pay the school fees of their children – even at the primary and elementary school level. We have selected students whose families cannot normally afford to send them to school and who have demonstrated promising academic progress in their studies thus far.

Scholarship students come from 6 secondary schools and 8 primary schools in the Kokoda Track catchment area. We have strong partnerships with the schools and the students’ scholarship includes tuition fees, boarding, food, uniforms, and school resources. Our scholarship students are selected on the basis of family need, gender equality, effort, and achievement and many of our scholarship graduates have gone on to gain entry into university and full time employment.

Click here to meet our current students who have received KTF Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel scholarships.

Click here to read some stories from our current KTF Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel scholarship students.

School resource program

Through our School Resource Scheme, the Foundation provides vital educational resources to 25 elementary, primary, and secondary schools in the Kokoda Track catchment area. The Foundation has been providing school resources and supplies to schools along the Kokoda Track since its inception in 2003. The schools are able to use the funding for what they deem to be necessary and each school has an account with the largest stationary supplier in the country. Schools typically use their funds to purchase PNG curriculum textbooks, library books, classroom materials, desks, and other general stationary items.

Some of the resources purchased by our schools in 2009 included:

- Thousands of student exercise books, textbooks, and reading books
- Teacher resources including hundreds of reams of paper, chalk, white boards and markers, folders and flip charts
- Thousands of stationary items, including pens, pencils, crayons, paint, glue, rulers, and scissors
- Hundreds of items of school equipment, including calculators, mathematics and science instruments, and diaries.

The Bisset Medal - Kokoda Scholars

An exciting new adventure for the Kokoda Track Foundation is our ongoing quest to find the future leaders of Papua New Guinea. We do this through our Kokoda Scholars program that seeks to identify the best and brightest in the country and assist their transition to future leadership roles.

In 2010, our first ever Bisset Medal Kokoda Scholar - Benjamin Wakip - will begin his tertiary studies. Benjamin topped the whole of PNG in 2009 in his HSC and was accepted into a Computer Science degree at the University of Technology, Lae. Benjamin was a KTF Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel Scholarship recipient and in 2009 was selected to receive the first Bisset Medal. Benjamin's scholarship will cover his tuition fees, boarding and living expenses, a laptop computer and other required educational resources, mentoring opportunities, work experience, and a student exchange to Australia. Click here to read an inspirational letter from Benjamin.

Each year, a new exceptional student will be awarded with the Bisset Medal and is given a number of leadership, educational, and community oriented opportunities during their enrolment in a degree at university. They are provided with mentoring opportunities, work experience, full tuition and boarding, university textbooks and resources, and an opportunity to come to Australia on exchange. The Foundation is excited about this new chapter and working with schools and universities in PNG to foster their future leaders.

Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel Tertiary Scholarships

The Foundation has been running its primary and secondary scholarship program for a number of years now and in 2010 we have a number of students who have successfully graduated from Grade 12 and been accepted into University. In 2010, the Foundation will support a number of these students with tertiary scholarships to enable them to gain qualifications for the career of their choice. More information to come about these exceptional students and the courses they are enrolling in at university...

Teacher Training

There is currently a great need for “teacher training” for the majority of teachers in the schools along the Kokoda Track. Recently, education in PNG has undergone a large-scale reform, resulting in new curricula and subjects being taught across the country. Many teachers only hold certificates and require their qualifications to be upgraded to a diploma or degree.

Further, there are huge problems across the whole country, because there are a limited number of eligible teachers who speak the local community language. PNG has more than 800 distinct languages! These language barriers, combined with the remoteness and difficulty of the living standards along the Kokoda Track, mean that many schools are without a teacher for months on end throughout the teaching year.

The Kokoda Track Foundation believes it is vital for local Grade 10 and Grade 12 graduates to be trained as elementary and primary school teachers so that they can return to their home village and work in the school. We believe this is the key factor to keeping schools along the Track opened so that the children in the village can get an education.  In 2010 we are identifying local villagers to train as teachers or to upgrade their qualifications so that they can teach in the elementary and primary schools along the Track. We are also providing these opportunities to teachers who need further training working in the secondary schools where we have scholarship students.

Content © The Kokoda Track Foundation 2009   |   Email : gen.nelson@kokodatrackfoundation.org for more information