Tuvaluan Leaders are Creating a Future of Equitable Education

Announced in 2022, the Tuvalu Australia Partnership for Quality Education (TAPQE) program, funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), builds on the progress of the Australia Awards and Australia Support of Education in Tuvalu (ASET). TAPQE is managed by Tetra Tech, on behalf of the Australian Government.

The Australia Awards Scholarship program has been hugely successful in Tuvalu and across the Pacific. Betty Vave and Rosie Paueli are Australia Awards alumnae. With decades of teaching and education management experience, they are both now key program facilitators in TAPQE.

Betty Vave is TAPQE country manager and is a trusted and authoritative voice in inclusive education in Tuvalu. She began her career as a primary school teacher 30 years ago, when the Australia Awards was just being established. Betty was inspired by her father’s teaching career, but was also frustrated by the one-size-fits-all model of teaching she saw alienating some of her peers. She leverages her experience as a primary school teacher and school supervisor, as well as her specialist inclusivity in education qualifications to advocate for an equitable future for Tuvalu’s education system.

Rosie Paueli is TAPQE’s inclusive education, GEDSI and climate change officer. Rosie is passionate about helping her community understand the importance of education without discrimination or bias. For Rosie, working with children has been one of the most rewarding experiences in her 20-year career. As a fierce advocate for diversity and inclusion in education, she takes great pride in the positive impact her work has on people’s lives. Rosie has spent the last five years delivering the ASET program, a $4.26M bilateral partnership between the two governments.

Her advocacy as a project officer led to the establishment of Tuvalu’s first Inclusive Education Resource Centre in Funafuti. The centre provides facilities, teaching and equipment for students with disabilities, individual educational plans and in-service training to teachers across Tuvalu.

The Australia Awards in Tuvalu, managed by Tetra Tech for over 15 years, is an important part of Australia’s strategy to build capacity through higher education. The ongoing achievements of alumni like Betty and Rosie are testament to the program’s ability to create change in alignment with its aim of improving economic and social development.

Building on ASET’s success to further advance inclusive education in Tuvalu

It will also expand its remit, with newly included outcomes that directly address diversity and climate change in education across literacy, numeracy, student pathways and upskilling educators and policymakers. TAPQE will complement other donor program education investments in Tuvalu, including those by the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Secretariat for Pacific Community.