CYRIL Potter College of Education (CPCE) Principal, Myrtle Fanfair, has said the introduction of distance learning there in 1996, targeting primarily teachers in the hinterland regions, has had a measurable impact on their training and upgrading.
She said the programme, which was made possible through funding from the European Union (EU), was delivered partly also by face-to-face sessions at the CPCE Turkeyen Campus, Greater Georgetown.
According to her, participants were drawn from Regions One (Barima/Waini), Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni), Eight (Potaro/Siparuni), Nine (Upper Takutu/Upper Essequibo) and remote parts of Region Four (Demerara/Mahaica) and by August 1999, 45 teachers had successfully completed the course.
Fanfair noted that in 1996, too, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) offered the Ministry of Education a substantial grant to bolster distance education, and a project proposal was developed and approved, paving the way for the establishment of Guyana Basic Education Teacher Training Project (GBET).
She said it engendered a revamping of CPCE’s curriculum, introducing a three-year 145 credit semesterised scheme for distance education at the early childhood and primary levels.
Fanfair said the capacity of lecturers was further strengthened to write and deliver distance education, not only for the certificate at the early childhood and primary levels but to use the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) modules in English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies for the upgrading of hinterland teachers in Regions One, Seven, Eight and Nine.
PILOTED
She recalled that the certificate for the primary and early childhood programme was first piloted at five CPCE in-service centres, namely at Vreed-en-Hoop in Region Three (West Demerara/Essequibo Island); Anna Regina in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam); Georgetown, Region Four; Linden in Region Ten (Upper Demerara/Berbice) and New Amsterdam in Region Six (East Berbice/Corentyne).
Later, CPCE ventured into Regions One, Seven and Nine with the same, Fanfair related.
She disclosed that last June, CPCE complemented the early childhood and primary levels with the Distance Secondary Academic Certificate Programme.
GBET, financed by CIDA, resulted from the success in the Early Childhood and Primary Distance Education Programmes, Fanfair stated.
Fanfair, who spoke at the CPCE inception, said it will be piloted at the Rose Hall Centre in Region Six, at Vreed-en-Hoop and in Georgetown where 120 persons are currently pursuing it.
The 125 credit system is being imparted in nine semesters, three of which are to be done using the face-to-face delivery mode.
The courses include English Proficiency, Teaching of English as a second Language, Technology in Education, Personal and Professional Development, Physical Education, Art, Music Education, Spanish, Individual Study, Community Project, Curriculum Theory, Psychology of Learning and Teaching, Teaching Methods and Classroom Testing.
Education Minister Shaik Baksh said the innovation will significantly increase the number of trained secondary school teachers in the hinterland where they are needed most.
The GBET process will come to an end next month but the Ministry of Education has pledged its commitment to take over and continue it.
TARGETS
GBET Director, Ms. Susan Sproule recently reported that it has achieved all its planned targets since its introduction a decade ago.
She said, through the Distance Education Foundation Programme (DEFP), 349 teacher trainees were upgraded to pursue studies at CPCE.
“Through the Distance Education Early Childhood and Primary Certificate Programme, approximately 970 teachers have, over the four implementation years to date, successfully completed it and they are all now trained teachers,” Sproule announced.
She said that 843 education managers were successful at the Distance Education Management Programme (DEMP) which is now being sustained by the National Centre for Educational Resource Department (NCERD).
In addition, Sproule underscored that the institutional capacity of the project’s main stakeholder institution, CPCE, has been built and strengthened and a key focus of the outcome is to enable the writing of curricula for distance education, plan, deliver, monitor and evaluate it.
But she contended that the most notable benefit was the establishment of eight hinterland in-service centres, providing access to teacher training by CPCE, through the distance education methodology.
“As a result, we have supported the Ministry of Education in decreasing the number of untrained teachers in the hinterland, assisted in the alleviation of poverty and addressed, to, some extent, gender equality issues in hinterland communities.
RESULTS
“Through improving systems of education delivery in the hinterland communities, we are raising the standard of living. We now have empirical evidence that these results do, indeed, have an important impact on the improvement of social and economic conditions in the communities that GBET has touched,” Sproule asserted.
CIDA, in 2007, approved of extending the GBET project to further strengthen basic education teacher training systems in Guyana.
The objective is to improve the quality of basic education locally by bolstering the teacher training.
Prior to that development, there was a distance education trained teacher’s certificate programme and the earliest known form was provided by the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (U.S.) by way of correspondence courses.
According to Fanfair, secondary education was not accessible outside of Berbice High, Queen’s College and Bishops’ High School.
However, by November 1992, pioneering efforts at it in this country started at the University of Guyana (UG) Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE) and it led to other initiatives.
In 1995, the Guyana In-Service Distance Education Project (GUIDE) was started with financial arrangements between the Ministry of Education and the UK Department of International Development (DIFID) to upgrade the academic and pedagogical skills of unqualified teachers while they continued their teaching responsibilities in their schools.
