It is a Guyana Basic Education Teacher (GBET) training project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), following the success of the Early Childhood and Primary Distance Education Programmes.

The Principal, Mrs. Myrtle Fanfair, speaking at the introduction on the Turkeyen Campus, said the course will be piloted at its centres in Rose Hall, Corentyne, Berbice; Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara and Georgetown.

She told the gathering, including Education Minister Shaik Baksh, outgoing Canadian High Commissioner Charles Court and students that 125 teachers have been invited to pursue the qualification.

Fanfair said 125 credit print-based programme will be imparted in nine semesters, three of which are to be during the Summer, using the face-to-face mode of delivery.

Each of the Summer semesters will last for a maximum of six weeks and all students would be allowed a maximum of 14 semesters to successfully complete the process.

They will be taught in 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.

Mr. Baksh said the undertaking will significantly increase the number of trained secondary school teachers in the hinterland and areas where they are needed most.

He said, as a means of attracting teachers to those regions of the country, the Government will be allocating a $30,000 housing allowance for those willing to serve there.

Baksh said reforming the college agenda is a top priority and a CPCE/University of Guyana task force has been set up to facilitate it.

Reduction
This, he said involves the reduction of the school based years a student spends at the training centre from three to one.

It means students will spend one year in CPCE classroom work and the remainder doing practical in schools.

Baksh disclosed that next September, CPCE will no longer be offering a trained teacher’s certificate but a two-year associate degree in education.

Persons who meet the minimum requirements for entry into the college will do the course in two years and those who do not in three years, with the first being for upgrading purposes, he related.

Baksh said teachers who are successful with the associate degree will study for two years at UG for a degree in education.

Currently, a student has to study three years for a trained teacher’s certificate and four years for a degree.

He said the task force is working out the modalities for the programme and, apart from this development, he is hoping, in the next five years, to incorporate CPCE into a UG faculty.

Baksh said, too that his ministry through the World Bank, has benefitted from a US$3M grant to concentrate on teachers professional development and this will include their capacity building and training teacher educators.

He said, in addition, the Ministry of Education, in keeping with its drive to improve quality delivery is striving to increase, to 70 per cent, the number of trained teachers in the system, over the next five years.

Now, with a secondary distance education programme in place, Baksh said he is pushing for CPCE to go online.

The GBET programme, which started in 1999, will end in October 2010 but he announced that his ministry will take over and continue it.