John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series Torembi and the Sepik A Study of Village Life in New Guinea |
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Topic No. 15: School and After ~ Photos 256 - 287 |
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John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series Torembi and the Sepik A Study of Village Life in New Guinea |
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Topic No. 15: School and After ~ Photos 256 - 287 |
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| 256. Since Torembi has both a primary school and a preschool, young people here have some chance of getting a basic education. The primary school was originally part of the Roman Catholic mission; and it still has a catholic ethos, with Mass every Friday. (Primary school opposite the church.) |
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| 257. The preschool was built in Torembi 2 by the community. It provides those willing and able to attend with an introduction to basic schooling. |
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| 258. The furniture is rudimentary and their tribal language (Sawos) is used in instruction. From here children can advance to the primary school, now run by the government, where the languages used are first pidgin then English. |
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| 259. Not everyone attends, however, even though primary schooling is supposed to be compulsory. There are fees involved … two kina for the school each term and five for the parents' association. Some families simply do not have the money; others do not think education is necessary … not for girls anyway. |
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| 260. Most children start primary school when they are 8, but may have to wait a year if there are too few beginners to make up a new class. They can stay on till Grade 6, but many leave before that. (Grades 7 and 8 have recently been added as a bridge to secondary education.) |
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| 261. The school itself lay close to the airstrip, on the opposite side to the church. There were 8 classrooms, plus houses for teachers. The children come from Torembi 1, 2 and 3 and five other villages. |
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| 262. Two rooms were built recently, using materials brought in from outside; but most classrooms are, like these, constructed of local materials, much like houses, except that they are not built on stumps. |
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| 263. There were seven teachers and 240 students in the 1980s. An eighth teacher was posted to another school because of a drop in enrolments, and this vacant classroom was used as a gymnasium and activities room. Some children walk for an hour and half each way in order to attend. If they arrive at school soaking wet they are sent home immediately, to avoid pneumonia: but on very wet days the school is closed. |
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| 264. Behind the school there were toilets (but no water to flush them) and a basketball court by the principal’s house. Lessons start at 8.00 am and finish at 3.00 pm. |
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| 265.The sturdiest of the older buildings was the one used as an office and store, with its interior walls plastered with notices … advertising rules for appropriate behaviour and good health, in-service training sessions, lesson times, duty rosters, creative arts programs, and the school’s aims and objectives etc. |
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| 266. The principal’s office was decorated in much the same way, plus a sign on the door which read: "Headmaster's Office : Enter with Peace and Harmony". |
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| 267. Needless to say the school operates with a minimum of equipment … just a few posters (some provided by the Department of Education, others made locally). |
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| 268. There was no electricity and the only light in the classrooms was that which came through the spaces which served as windows. The children sat on wooden benches. There was a shelf beneath for their books but no ‘tidy box’ or locker. |
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| 269. In the absence of the many resources available to teachers in “the Developed World”, just about everything here depends on the teachers themselves: but most students are keen and vie with one another to be chosen to answer each and every question. (Also see video extracts 19 & 20) |
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| 270. Besides paying the salaries of teachers, the government provides the basic materials distributed to students. |
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| 271. In addition to English, children learn basic maths, and social studies … even if their globe is falling apart. |
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| 272. By the time they reach Grade 6, most students are in their teens. They will speak 3 languages fluently – that of their own tribe (the Sawos), pidgin and English – and they will also be familiar with the speech forms of several other tribes. |
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| 273. A third of them may be chosen to go on to secondary school, but few ever get there. There’s no secondary department at Torembi, so they would have to leave home and go to Wewak. (High school students travel home for Christmas by plane) |
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| 274. Few families can afford this. It cost 300 kina a year to keep a child at the residential school, and half that much even if they lived with relatives. As a result, the village has a large number of partially educated young people who have nothing much to do. |
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| 275. The girls are kept busy till they marry, but young men here are often bored to death … which is one reason why they formed the string band. Blood has been shed recently in fights with supporters of bands from other villages, at contests sponsored by local radio stations; but no one has been killed. (Band practice in Torembi 3: through rainbow filter) |
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| 276. In some parts of New Guinea, though, especially near highways, gangs of young men -- known as ‘rascals’ -- are a major problem today, and a threat to law and order. (Street in Wewak.) |
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| 277. In the past, young men were effectively disciplined through initiation. They were separated from their families for several months, and carefully instructed in the mysteries of tribal beliefs and practices. (Spirit House at Kosimbi) |
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| 278. As part of this process, a knife was used to mark their skin with symbols, which differed according to their tribe and clan. Oils, and ash, were rubbed into the cuts so they would stand out later, when the flesh had healed. Afterwards, having been admitted to full membership in their tribe, young men could be controlled by community pressure. |
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| 279. For many years though, the Catholic Church discouraged such practices, and young men who have nothing much to do today are free of traditional restraints. In New Guinea, almost half the population are under 15 years of age. Many have some schooling, but not enough to get them a job. Youth unemployment, therefore, is probably the country’s biggest problem. (Volleyball game in Torembi.) |
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| 280. In more recent years the Church has been a little more accommodating of local traditions: and the school, no longer part of the mission, has focussed on tribal culture in Social Studies lessons and in the occasional Arts Festival. Teams of performers trekked here from other schools in the region, some of them clearly representative of different traditions. |
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| 281. Girls outnumbered boys, but there were teams of boys also, wearing grass skirts over cotton shorts. |
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| 282. Most groups danced and/or sang to rhythms established by kundu drums, but one school brought along a battery-powered electronic keyboard. |
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| 283. Though most of the dancers were teenagers (having progressed through the grades slowly due to interruptions in their schooling) there were young ones who performed also. |
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| 284. In addition to dancing, the program (which lasted several hours) included dramatic representations of tribal legends … this one about a young man who wanted to know what his father was hiding under his 'arse grass'. |
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| 285. Teachers danced also. The principal of Torembi Public School in the centre is carrying a song book plus my kundu drum. |
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| 286. Inevitably there were awards for the best-dressed dancers … |
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| 287. And this included the teachers. (Also see video extracts 36-39) |
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Cultures in Context Intro: Photos & Recordings
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by John Tyman
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Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum,
Oxford University, 2010.
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