PNG honours Kiwi teacher’s dedication

A Te Awamutu man endured a machete attack and pitiful pay for 16 years as he served in the education sector in Papua New Guinea. Rachel Thomas reports.

Terry Cowland still remembers the day Jennifer showed up in his classroom in Papua New Guinea.

‘‘[You were] skinny, shy and a bit afraid of this white man . . .’’ he wrote to his former student.

‘‘You came not too certain of the study you would have to do. What is important Jennifer, is that you came.’’

Cowland, who now lives in Te Awamutu, wrote this letter in 1993, when Jennifer was about to graduate from teacher’s college in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Cowland has a wry sense of humour, ‘‘if you don’t, then forget about going overseas’’, he preaches.

But he still gets tearful when he talks about her.

She’s one of hundreds of students Cowland has had correspondence with since he taught them in their first four years of secondary school – and now he’s finally going to be honoured for his services.

Cowland, now retired, is trying to scrape together $3000 to return to Port Moresby and accept a Queen’s Honour from the Papua New Guinean Government, which recognises 16 years spent in PNG.

Cowland is being issued with a Queen’s Honour OL (Officer of Logahu) for ‘‘distinguished service to education and churches in PNG’’.

He was in PNG as a missionary after having trained in Dunedin as a primary and secondary school teacher.

In 1983 Cowland developed Vavago Community College, later renamed to Wewak Community College. Until 1992, he was the only teacher for about 100 students.

‘‘I devised an individualised programme for every student, and we set goals for each day, each week, each month and each year.

‘‘It was a joy – there was no discipline problems, there was nothing. It was amazing.’’

His environment was unstable, his money sparse, and his surroundings, at time, dangerous.

He recalled the night he saved a screaming woman from attackers and had a machete buried in his shoulder.

Cowland scared some attackers away from a woman who lived in the house next door to his, but failed to see the two men hiding in a hedge.

‘‘It was the year Carl Lewis won the 100 metres in the world record, and so as I saw these two guys rush out of there, all that went through my head was if there was ever a moment Terry would like to be Carl Lewis, this was the moment.

‘‘Fortunately the machete hit me on the shoulderblade, but that was great because it hit the bone. If it had gone further to the centre, you wouldn’t be interviewing me today.’’

In 1991, the Wewak Community College building was broken into and destroyed by vandals. The doors, windows and furniture were destroyed,

Terry Cowland has been awarded a Queen’s Honour by the Papua New Guinea Honours Board for his services to education and churches. and human faeces smeared across the classroom.

‘‘Often it’s not personal it’s just ‘why can’t we be here’,’’ Cowland said, without a hint of anger in his voice.

He fled PNG in 1992 after an attack, and returned to New Zealand. Sadly, his Papua New Guinean wife, Leonie, was killed in a road accident in 1999, but he’s since remarried.

He’s hoping to take wife Marita with him to Port Moresby, so she can be by his side when he receives his honour.

Cowland says his school was for students whose parents could not pay school fees, or could not afford to send all their children to high school because of patriarchal cultural issues.

‘‘I set the college up specifically to cater for that group, to have a college of education to attend brings a sense of pride and achievement.’’

He has ‘‘multiples of students’’ like Jennifer. ‘‘I’ve got about 600 letters from students over the years. You get so involved in kids lives – the cultural issues, the social tensions between different cultural groups.’’

Although there’s no longer a classroom left to visit, Cowland said the return trip would be full of ‘‘emotional joy’’.

‘‘I can almost guarantee you when I go over to Papua New Guinea and get off that plane, the Melanesian side of Terry will come alive.’’

To help Terry Cowland go to givealittle.co.nz/cause/terrycowland

rachel.thomas@fairfaxmedia.co.nz