We are currently enduring the worst world pandemic in 100 years.  Nothing will be the same when Covid-19 is eventually controlled. How will it affect Education?  How will it affect Kopkop College?  Will we continue to be able to produce well-educated and formed youngster to plough ahead into the unknown After the Virus World?

Kopkop College is a very proud National School guided by the Motto ‘Nihil Nisi Melius; which, in English means We will always strive to Do Better’.  This is the critical foundation for our Vision, Philosophy, and Mission.

Firstly, our Vision is to pursue excellence in providing quality education in a vigorous and progressive environment which embodies the most desirable family-centered and traditional values.

Secondly, our Philosophy is to produce children with predictable results. This implies dedicated teachers who can plan, program, teach, assess and report their student learning in terms of outcomes. This teaching is defined as TokTok Wantaim and Tingim Bek.

Thirdly, our five-fold Mission is our concern for caring, respect, justice and equal opportunity for all.  We are committed to multi-cultural diversity as represented in the College community. We are committed to community development.  Student and Teachers welfare is one of our foremost aims.  And finally, we are committed to ensure our children gain the highest level of their personal potential through basic education – academically, socially, physically and spiritually.

We are indeed the College of Excellence.

Kopkop College has a recognized history as a home-grown educational institution, which follows and adds to the official Government education Curriculum. Since our inception as the first private Day Care and Pre-School organization in suburban Gerehu, notwithstanding the success of National and Church-run Schools, we have undergone continuing changes in both name and location and educational infrastructure.

In 1983 our first intake was of 20 students in our Pre-School Day Care program.  A decade later, we introduced our Elementary School in 1993, after procuring land and erecting infrastructure.  Proceeding year by year, we completed the Basic Primary education with Grade 8 in 2002.

A name change occurred from Bambi Primary School to Kopkop College in 2006.  Lower Secondary Education commenced with Grade 9 in 2007 and each Grade progress a year at a time. 

In 2014, further infrastructure activities commenced, now giving our students access to modern Science Laboratories, IT Labs, Libraries, Design &Technology and Expressive Arts Facilities.  These practical service areas are now in full use to enhance student skills, knowledge and attitudes.

Currently, Kopkop College has been continually exploring ways and means of preparing our Grade 12 Graduates to be able to enter Tertiary Institutions such as PNG Universities and Technical Colleges, as well as Universities in Australia, with a close contact with James Cook University in Townsville.

What does the future hold?  During this Covid-19 pandemic we are already well ahead of many other schools in developing on-line education.  This is one area that we may wish to explore, so that students, parents and teachers can be encouraged to extend their digital learning capacity to invigorate their own desires to achieve the best outcomes for their future lives.

We will continue to develop our Kavieng campus, instill the campus by enlarging its present school building infrastructure, and improve current modern equipment services such science lab, information communication technology, design and technology and expressive arts facilities.

We will continue to instigate, improve and reconstruct our curriculum and assessment policies. The purpose of these changes will enable knowledge and skills, that are priority to building students’ technical confidence, to embrace the digital world and the experience Covid-19 has been deemed fit to consider.

Our Primary School curriculum from early childhood to grade 6 will remain high in English literacy and numeracy, PNG community living and expressive arts. Our lower and upper secondary school will retain enabling core subjects English and Mathematics. As we know these core skills and knowledge coupled with the correct attitudes are essential to develop further subject skills, placing emphasis and focus on ICT, Business, Social Science and the Science streams. After Covid-19, we want to see our students become much better prepared with these necessary skills, knowledge and attitude with an accompanying high level of confidence before entering tertiary education now and beyond.   

Kopkop College aims to establish an All-Girls School (Kopkop Girls College) for Grade 11 and 12.  The obvious reason is to ensure we have more women educated to participate meaningfully and successfully in the business and economic affairs of Papua New Guinea.  The curriculum and program of study will prepare students academically with a strong focus on developing language and mathematical skills, information communication technology and business skills. These strong basic academic foundation skills will pave the way to providing confidence and enjoyment in learning at tertiary level in PNG and overseas.

In developing this concept, we are seeking a continual partnership with the UPNG CTS program and UP Learning Pathways, an Off-Shore program with Education Queensland International.

Covid-19 has taught us first of all, that we do not own this world to ourselves. This world we are living in is a shared world with other mammals. And so, for this reason we must learn to appreciate, respect and love what the environment has given us, the vast land and seas that we feed from. Covid-19 has allowed us to reorganise our lives, evaluate family plans and reorganise our social, economic and political destiny from its impact.   

In the social development sphere, we have all accepted and endorsed that health and education are the most critical and essential services for long term quality living and quality learning for our children through education. In education we agree and endorse the philosophy that education is the Key to success and for this reason we need to evaluate and redirect the education policy to be responsible and responsive to the changes Covid-19 is predicting on how our human resource development is being defined.  The health and education services must be provided to us without any questions by our government departmental services. It is their role to provide the much needed care today than ever before Covid-19. Why I say this? It is because the economic changes tarnished by Covid-19 on our economy must not be taken lightly. The disruption of the PNG curriculum, its delivery and timetables since term 1 must now supported with quality and prompt response by both National and Local governments. The teachers were left in disarray without prompt and urgent support to their educational system, basic and tertiary alike. Examples were felt throughout the community education system. I believe parents from the local level government are looking forward to seeing much better changes from before the Covid-19 pandemic.

We must salute our PNG families as well as Kopkop College families for showing great courage and resilience during this time. With our KC families we thank you for supporting the Covid-19 prompt actions of our educational time table amendments, especially in supporting our alternate delivery mode, our very own KC Moodle on-line learning. Kopkop College will continue to make adjustments to enable our system to ensure its full operation for now and beyond.