– Minister Manickchand

THE need for trained teachers to obtain a release from the Ministry of Education to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Education at the University of Guyana will no longer be required starting this September, Education Minister, Priya Manickchand said.

According to a post made on the Education Minister’s Facebook page, the ministry has been working with the university to restructure the timing arrangements of the programme to better facilitate teachers in the public school system.

“I am happy to inform all trained teachers who will be pursuing their degree in education from September 2022, that you will no longer need ‘release’ to attend UG. All classes for the degree in education will be held outside of school hours. Thank you, Dr. Paloma Mohamed and team,” Minister Manickchand said.

According to Chief Education Officer (CEO), Dr. Marcel Hudson, who spoke to the Guyana Chronicle on Monday, the new system will allow for a smoother organised structure as the ministry pushes to achieve its aim of boosting the capacity of the local education system, through certified and qualified teachers.

He noted that, over the years, the ministry has seen teachers abandoning their posts and illegally enrolling in the programme without the requisite permission from the ministry. This practice, he said has disenfranchised their students.

The CEO explained that the old system allowed for a smaller number of teachers to be allowed time off from their regular duties as they pursued their degrees. This meant that the ministry could not grant large numbers of teachers releases simultaneously.

Under the old Ministry of Education policy, four teachers from Grade ‘A’ schools were allowed to be released; three from Grade B schools and two from Grade C schools.

“…And, of course, based upon the specific need of the school, the subject and affordability and ensuring that there were adequate resources to ensure that the children were not left in a compromised position,” said Hutson.

TRAINING TEACHERS
This change is one of many the ministry plans to institute to promote better education delivery.

Last year, Minister Manickchand announced plans to have all teachers in the public education system trained.

Following the minister’s announcement, the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) has facilitated the enrollment of over 2,500 first-year students, a figure five higher than the usual enrollment number.

Courses at the college are now fully online and teachers in the system who are not trained have been advised to get qualified.

Minister Manickchand noted that moving the college online has allowed hinterland teachers to enroll in the Associate Degree in Education programme, rather than the Trained Teacher’s Certificate (TTC) programme, which, previously, was the only programme accessible to them if they were willing to leave their homes and attend face-to-face classes at the college.

“Hinterland teachers across the country, we have seen a remarkable drop. We used to have about three hundred and thirty-something teachers doing the Trained Teacher’s Certificate (TTC) programme as opposed to the Associate Degree programme. Before 2020, the TTC programme was the only programme offered to hinterland teachers,” she added.

She noted that there are challenges in terms of connectivity and access to devices but the ministry is currently working to have those addressed.

LICENSING
In an effort to boost quality education delivery, Minister Manickchand, in December 2021, said the Ministry of Education plans to license teachers in the education system.

“Beginning next year (2022), 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 had noted.

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 developmental needs.