Dr Julie Fry, senior educator in community services at Wodonga TAFE, recently returned from a 10-day teaching program at Kiribati in the central Pacific Ocean.

Made up of a collection of 33 coral atolls and low-lying reef islands, there are grave fears worldwide that Kiribati will be the first casualty of climate change.

The World Bank has reported Pacific island nations are the most physically and economically vulnerable to climate change and events such as floods, earthquakes and cyclones.

Scientists have warned Kiribati may become uninhabitable within decades.

“While world powers have summit meetings to negotiate treaties on how to reduce and mitigate carbon emissions, residents of tiny Kiribati, a former British colony with 110,000 people, are debating how to respond before it is too late,” The New York Times reported in July 2016.

One of the responses of the international aid community has been to help upskill the country’s population ahead of a possible relocation off the islands.

Dr Fry volunteered to train local teachers in literacy programs as part of the Kirribati Inclusive Education initiative, and said it was a “privilege” to help these “beautiful people”.

Based in the capital Tarawa, Dr Fry taught 24 teachers the fundamentals of an explicit and direct approach to teaching literacy.

She said she was inspired by their thirst for knowledge and willingness to embrace new teaching practices.

In Kirabiti, early education is taught in the native language and then English from Year 4.

That approach allows teachers to more easily identify literacy problems in students, Dr Fry said.

“After our training, the teachers made changes to their lesson plans,” she said.

“It was really empowering to see teachers so open to learning and wanting to take it back into the classroom.”