Grenada, Barbados among C’bean countries requesting Guyana’s help in training teachers

With significant successes from the Education’ Ministry’s online training programme for teachers, several countries within the region have expressed an interest in working with Guyana to have their educators similarly benefit from the initiative.
Last year, the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) rolled out its online training programme for teachers in hinterland communities. Utilising platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, CPCE succeeded in bringing high-quality instruction directly to educators who are unable to physically attend classes.
With the positive results seen from the initiative education Minister Priya Manickchand highlighted that several Caribbean countries have reached out for guidance to implement their own online learning programmes.

“I’d be happy to tell you that because we’re online, we have been approached by at least two Caribbean countries, colleagues who have asked about how they could bet their teachers, much smaller numbers than ours, could benefit from this online training that we have, and that is something we’re currently exploring with them.”
On this point the Minister noted that these engagements were done at the surface level. The Minister added that before the programme is implemented, several areas must be looked at to increase its efficiency.
“Let me just say very clearly, those conversations were not advanced far, they were initially into… I wonder if this is something we can benefit from and it’s an online programme so we would have to work out how teaching practice is done in those countries if we were to use this”
Meanwhile, in light of the success of the CPCE online programme, the University of Guyana (UG) was tasked with following suit.
“So, we also asked the University of Guyana to take their programme online. By their programme, I mean their degree programme, and so there is no need for teachers to ask for leave, to exit before all the teachers would know that only two or three of them could go to UG at any given point.”
The Education Minister added.” That now means that we’re not stopping anybody. We have created the environment where we’re promoting people’s learning, and once you get a degree, you have all kinds of other benefits.”

Meanwhile, the CPCE began offering online training programmes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The online programmes expanded the college’s capacity to train teachers and provided more opportunities for people who might not have been able to attend in-person classes.

Programmes at CPCE
Associate’s Degree in Education: A two-year programme with specialisations in early childhood, primary, or secondary education
Trained Teacher’s Certificate: A three-year programme
Teaching Children English Online Course: An on-demand video course with articles, a downloadable resource, and a certificate of completion
Teacher Upgrading Programme: A programme for teachers who have already completed some training