STARTING from 2022, teachers in Guyana will have to be licensed on an annual basis, and will need to engage in continual professional development and satisfy other criteria to merit the renewal of their licences.
Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle, several teachers said that they would welcome such a development as a means of keeping teachers more accountable.
“By having teachers being licensed and renewing that licence ever so often, it will keep teachers on their toes, and they would do what they are paid to do, because not all teachers do what they should.
“I have been teaching for nine years and I know a lot of teachers who don’t make sense,” commented one teacher from a secondary school on the East Coast of Demerara.
The teacher added: “If we follow through with it, our education system will get better. Sometimes you find a small number of teachers [at a school] do what is required and push the school, but when the school gets praises there are others who rock back, take the fame but don’t do anything.”
Maths teacher at the Port Kaituma Secondary School, in Region One, Leon Bailey, said he, too, is in full agreement with seeing such a system implemented as a means of quality assurance in education delivery.
“There are some teachers who make it bad for the many hardworking teachers in the system, and many of them are not held accountable. Hopefully, this measure will tighten the screws and improve the quality of education delivered to the children in Guyana and also hold teachers more accountable,” he said.
Highlighting the need for continuous development of teachers, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, announced the ministry’s plan to implement the licensing system while delivering remarks at a media brunch at the Cara Lodge, on Monday.
“Beginning next year, we have to license our teachers; this is one of our most important professions. Doctors have to be licensed and re-licensed every year because we have to make sure that they have these skills,” Minister Manickchand related.
She added: “Teachers across the Caribbean, North America, they hold a licence, and if you don’t engage in a certain number of professional development courses that speak to the level of commitment and what you might be able to know and learn, we can’t progress… so we are moving in that direction also.”
The need for improvements in the education sector has taken centre stage over the past few years, as conversations continue around the need for Guyana to develop its human resources to match its development.
The minister’s announcement of licensing for teachers follows continuous calls for all teachers in the public school system to become trained teachers.
Minister Manickchand said that the ministry is aiming for all teachers in the public school system to be either trained or be enrolled for training by 2022.
Guyana currently has approximately 70 per cent of trained teachers in the system. However, that number has remained constant over the years, partially due to the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), Guyana’s only teacher training college, having a maximum capacity of approximately 530 teachers annually. The intake at the school has not been enough to keep up with teachers who are leaving the system.
But this year, through the new CPCE online school, the college was able to register five times its normal intake.
This new development has particularly benefitted hinterland teachers, who, in the past, would opt to do the Trained Teacher’s Certificate (TTC).
Those persons are now moving to instead study for their Associate Degrees. This makes it easier for them to go on and earn their Bachelor’s Degree in Education.
Programmes offered by CPCE include the two-year Associate Degree in Education, with specialisations in early childhood, primary or secondary education; the three-year Trained Teacher’s Certificate, and a one-year Associate Degree in Education.
Aside from the expansion of CPCE, this year the ministry would have also partnered with ProFutoro for the training of teachers to deliver online learning.
Over 8,000 teachers were also among citizens who would have benefitted from courses offered through a partnership among the Ministry of Education, the Commonwealth of Learning and Coursera. A number of teacher-specific programmes are also being offered through the Guyana Online Academy Learning (GOAL).
