THE Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) will begin operating its full online school from today. Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, made the announcement on Friday during an engagement at the New Amsterdam Secondary School.
Minister Manickchand said provisions have also been made for face-to-face learning for students who have challenges with Internet connectivity.
“We are launching a fully online CPCE, however fully online does not mean solely online, so there [is] still going to be space for people to go board and lodge around CPCE and go to a face-to-face classroom. Especially those children from the hinterland, but we’re going fully online where every single thing can be done online.”
The minister said while lectures would be taught via Zoom, trainees would also be able to access resource materials, tutors, library and other services through their own devices.
She noted that in keeping with the government’s objective to provide training opportunities for teachers in remote areas and throughout Guyana, three categories of training were established.

These include the Associate Degree in Education, the Trained Teachers Certificate Programme and for persons who may be unable to get into these programmes due to the lack of qualifications, there are upgrading courses available.
The minister said this cohort would be the largest accepted at the college compared to the previous years.
“Every other year for the last 10 or 15 years our intake has been 500, 550, 530 and we have been graduating the same number every year. We registered as of yesterday, just over 2000 persons that are going to be trained to be teachers,” she said.
Minister Manickchand also noted that in order to lessen the effect of the pandemic on the education sector in the future, it was critical that the ministry craft solutions to ensure that learning and training takes place for these personnel. She said transformation of the education sector would introduce more trained teachers into the school system, improve the delivery of education and eventually lead to better scores in the classroom. (DPI)