MoE to source Spanish teachers from Cuba, Mexico

– admits to lack of resources as it gears up to introduce subject next month

With the Government recently making Spanish a mandatory subject in the primary school curriculum, Education Minister Priya Manickchand stated that sourcing teachers from Cuba and Mexico is being considered while Guyanese teachers receive training.
Speaking to reporters at an event on Thursday, Minister Manickchand lamented that there is currently a lack of trained Spanish teachers in Guyana, as the country gears up to introduce the compulsory subject into classrooms next month.
As such, the Ministry is considering alternative solutions to serve students during this period.
“We’re creating material through the National Centre of Educational Resources Development (NCERD), through our Materials Production Unit, that would help us in the absence of a trained Spanish teacher and allow a [generally] trained teacher to deliver Spanish to certain levels in primary school,” Manickchand said.
“We’re also trying to work with some of our partners, Cuba and Mexico, to see if we can get teachers now while we train ours,” Manickchand said.
Manickchand added that the Ministry is also looking at courses that can be done through the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) programme, at the University of Guyana (UG) or at Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) to train as many teachers as possible to eventually deliver these Spanish lessons at a high quality.
She added that retired teachers, who are willing to return, will be offered jobs to cover this gap, in the interim.
“That’s always something we do if teachers want to come back. Right now, that’s something the Ministry does. Retired teachers, who can still serve, are offered positions,” Manickchand said.
At the secondary school level, the Minister noted that more than 80 per cent of schools will be able to deliver Spanish lessons to their students.
Given Guyana’s immediate proximity to a number of Spanish-speaking countries as well as the influx of Spanish-speaking persons currently operating in the economy, President Dr Irfaan Ali last month had announced the subject’s addition to the curriculum while emphasising the importance of all Guyanese learning the language.
In addition to school children, he had noted that Cabinet members would also be mandated to learn Spanish, and encouraged the private sector to make investments to ensure their employees are familiar with the language as well.