Home
Home > History, Biography, Autobiography
| Meeting the Challenge$33.00 AUDMeeting the Challengeby Edited by Gail Burke In Brief : 236 pages, 153 mm x 235 mm, Hard cover, Section sewn Personal stories of Australian teachers in Papua New Guines Pre-Independence 1955-1975. ISBN 1 876344 42 3 Overview: Papua New Guinea occupies approximately half of the second largest island on the planet. This rich tropical area is so mountainous, rugged and inaccessible that over 700 different languages are spoken by tribes which have been isolated from each other and from the remainder of the world throughout the mists of history. The wide diversity of cultures and customs led to innumerable clashes between the many clans, and these have continued long after European settlers commenced the arduous process of unification and modernisation. An important part of the process of bringing the clans together and introducing them to the outside world was an Australian government-backed education system which commenced in earnest shortly after World War II and ended with the granting of Independence to Papua New Guinea in 1975. In the 1950s and 1960s Australian teachers were recruited under a program featuring the slogan ‘A career with a challenge’. As one of the adventurous young Australians who met this challenge, Gail Burke in recounting her own story and gathering others from her fellow pioneering teachers, has provided an invaluable insight to this remarkable land and its people. The account she has compiled is not only entertaining reading, but provides a rich mine of information about an eventful period - one which was expected to lead to a better future for the inhabitants of this exotic country. |
|---|---|
