Chief Education Officer, Marcel Hutson has urged untrained teachers in the public education system to enrol at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), warning that failure to do so could result in their termination.
As part of efforts to enhance the country’s education sector, Education Minister Priya Manickchand had previously announced the Ministry’s plans to have all teachers in the system trained.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand
In a memorandum issued last week to the Regional Education Officers in the 10 Administrative Regions across Guyana and in Georgetown, CEO Hutson urged that the untrained teachers get enrolled at the CPCE in order to be certified.
“The Ministry of Education wishes to advise that all untrained teaches in the system including those currently employed, must enrol at the Cyril Potter College of Education without delay at the appropriate level and programme,” Hutson related in the correspondence.
According to the document, which was posted to the Ministry’s Facebook page, this measure is in keeping with objectives to have all teachers trained and is necessary since it aids in the attainment of the mandate of the Ministry’s Education Sector Plan (2021-2022). Specifically, with regards to improving accountability and efficiency in the classroom; improving performance at all levels and reducing inequities in the classroom.
The Chief Education Officer further cautioned in the memo that “Failure to enrol as advised… may result in the Ministry’s inability to continue the employment of the persons so failing.”
Back in December, Minister Manickchand had revealed her Government’s plans to have 100 per cent trained or in-training teachers by the end of its current term in office.
“There are teachers who are in the system right now that are untrained and we have said to every teacher who is presently teaching in the classroom right now untrained, that each teacher needs to be trained… There are two types of untrained teachers teaching, those who have qualifications that can get them into the college but never really bothered, probably because of economic and other reasons, and there are teachers who are in the classroom who do not have the eligibility criteria to get into the college… We are upgrading those teachers so that they can get into the college,” she had stated.
Chief Education Officer Marcel Hutson
The Minister pointed out that there has consistently been about 70 per cent of trained teachers in the system for the past 15 years. However, it is anticipated that this figure would be significantly increased with the CPCE going fully online.
In fact, there was a surge of 2500 new students last year after the online training was introduced at the college.
“CPCE will be expanded further. The Cyril Potter College of Education is the only teacher training college in the country. Usually, about 535 students are accepted for face-to-face learning every year. This year, because we have gone online, we have more than 2500 students who have begun their first-year learning. That means in four years, when teachers around the world are going to see diminished numbers, Guyana is actually going to defy that. We’re actually going to put out more teachers,” Manickchand had stated.
She had also pointed out that there was a “remarkable” drop in the number of hinterland teachers admitted to pursue the Trained Teachers Certificate (TTC) programme. However, this is justified with a higher number of persons enrolling in the Associate’s Degree programme, offered by CPCE instead since it was offered online.
“We’ve seen a remarkable drop in the number of teachers in the hinterland doing the TTC programme. That causes some worry. When we checked, what it really was, was the reason for celebration not worry. The teachers who were forced to do only the TTC are now doing the Associate Degree programme because they have the qualifications. We just never offered it to them before,” the Education Minister noted.
