Education Department looks for talented children’s story writers
21 April 2015
BETTY BANNA
THE Department of Education in Papua New Guinea is interested in receiving children’s stories from PNG writers.
The Department of Education publishes collections of writing – called School Journals – that are suitable for children from Grade 3 to Grade 8.
Written and illustrated by PNG nationals, the School Journals are distributed free to primary schools throughout PNG.
The Department of Education is looking for a variety of different types of texts to include in the School Journals.
The texts can be stories, legends, non-fiction articles, personal experiences, poems, plays, photo stories and instructional articles.
Texts should vary in length and difficulty; from simpler texts of up to 450 words for Grade 3 to harder texts of up to 1,000 words for Grade 8. The texts should be appropriate for and relevant to PNG children.
Results from the Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment match widespread anecdotal evidence of poor achievement in reading in PNG schools, with most students not reaching required standards.
By publishing School Journals, the Department of Education aims to provide PNG’s children with relevant, high quality reading materials that can either be used in language and other lessons or be used for individual reading.
For more information, or to submit texts, please contact Betty Bana, Senior Curriculum Officer, School Journals at [email protected] or by post to Primary Section, Curriculum Development Division, Department of Education, PO Box 446, Waigani, NCD.
A small fee will be payable for texts that are selected for publication.
The Crocodile Prize is also willing to accept these stories as entries to the Paga Hill Development Company Award for Writing for Children, which offers a K5,000 prize
That's a commendable project Betty Banna. There are definitely writers who should be able to provide your department with material.
I have a suggestion which has less to do with your project directly, but share the same outcome - getting PNG written reading material into schools.
(1) Make a list of how many schools there are in PNG
(2) The price of all five of the Crocodile Prize Anthologies are: 2011 - US$8.02, 2012 - US$12.62, 2013 US$10, 2014 US$15, and likely that 2015 will be US$15; cost of shipping will be different for each book due to the weights, but Amazon.com could handle this.
(3) That makes a total of US$60.64 or PGK163.231 (www.xe.com/currencycalculator, PNG banking exchange rates may differ)
(4) If the Department of Education ordered 15,000 books i.e. 3000 copies of each Anthology, the total cost of books would be PGK816,155
(5) Say shipping costs double that figure to PGK1,632,310.
That would be a lovely 40th Independence Day gift to the children of Papua New Guinea.
Posted by: Michael Dom | 02 May 2015 at 03:42 AM
Great!
How about a better fee.
Posted by: Marlene Potoura | 22 April 2015 at 09:22 PM
Great idea!
Posted by: Mathias Kin | 21 April 2015 at 09:55 AM