Home Mentees and Mentors Ambrose Malefoasi, University of the South Pacific

Ambrose Malefoasi, University of the South Pacific

Ambrose Malefoasi, PhD Candidate| Grant Recipient and Mentee, 2022

Ambrose’s Manuscript Title – Education Decentralisation: The case of Public Participation Theory in the delivery of education services to schools in the Solomon Islands

Firstly, I wish to thank those on the committee for their trust in me and giving me the opportunity to engage in the programme. I was very happy to meet Hilary and create a mentoring relationship. It was a slow start for me but we have managed to establish a very friendly relationship right at the beginning of the journey. Hilary has a good connection with the Solomon Islands (context) and that was a perfect condition for the mentoring process.

The writing journey was a bit untidy at the beginning for me. Hilary came in to provide a re-direction in writing. I learnt that writing is not smooth. The good thing about this mentor and mentee relationship is that there is a person who sees the areas for improvement and guide you in the improvement. At times, I thought of giving up the work. There was encouragement from Hilary. The encouragement has kept me going and the thought of my article being read by some people is rewarding. This would be my very first article for publication with me as primary author and I am just crossing fingers here, for it to be finally published.

The journey was to me really rewarding for both Hilary and I. I look forward to more engagement with DevNet in the future.

Ambrose

Ambrose’s Mentor:

I was delighted to be asked to take part in DevNet’s mentoring initiative to support one of their Pacific Writing Grant Recipients, Ambrose Malefoasi from the Solomon Islands.  His research area was closely related to some aspects of my own doctoral studies, and I welcomed the opportunity to “pay it forward” in thanks for the help and support I received in the Solomons when I was there for my fieldwork about a decade ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of working with Ambrose on his manuscript – it was cool to work together to clarify his key messages and tighten the narrative to elucidate them and see it emerge as a publishable article.  After a couple of productive Zoom meetings, we mainly communicated by email and I was impressed with Ambrose’s engagement and careful appraisal of my suggestions and comments, returning the next draft as quickly as he could, given all his other commitments. 

Overall, although it did entail quite a bit of work on both sides,  my involvement in the mentoring initiative was extremely rewarding. 

It was a pleasure to see the rise in Ambrose’s writing confidence and I believe that having an independent “fresh eye” on his work has helped Ambrose to see how and where his ongoing thesis write up can continue to improve.

 Thank you for asking me.

Hilary

Dr. Hilary Tolley, Independent Consultant

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