By Cassandra Khan
CHRIS Krishnaram, a teacher at Saint Stanislaus College, took the chance of becoming an Information Technology (IT) teacher after being an IT technician at the high school for about five years.

After Chris finished high school, he attended the Government Technical Institute (GTI) where he studied Radio and Electronic Service. His goal then was to be an electronic engineer. He wanted to build and repair electronics.

Finding a job, however, was challenging aside from the job itself.

From that realisation, he then switched over to repairing computers, noting that was similar to his field of study.

After GTI, Chris pursued studies at Global Technology where he completed a number of computer courses. He would then go on to apply for the position of IT technician at Saint Stanislaus College.

“I joined as the technician in 2014 and in 2019, I became a teacher. So that is roughly five years I was a technician,” he told this newspaper in an interview as World Teachers’ Day was observed on October 5.

He related that after a while he felt as though his job became more of a routine as he was doing the same things every day.

“During the process of learning, I always had an interest in helping persons to understand IT and to get a better understanding of how a computer works,” he said.

He was always passionate about educating persons so he decided that, by being a teacher, he would be able to reach his goals.

Chris noted that, when he first started as a teacher, he wasn’t a very social person and could remember himself shaking with nervousness. Now, he is in his element at work.

He is currently studying at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) and is in his fourth semester completing an Associate’s degree in Education, majoring in IT.

In addition to CPCE, he is studying at Jain University to attain his Bachelor of Business Administration in IT. He also does photography, videography, volleyball, and cricket as hobbies.

He teaches Grades 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 and has a passion for digital media, animation and game design.

“When I started teaching, it was mainly to teach IT, but the school did not have a digital media teacher and it was relatively easy because digital media is about business and content creation.

“I was already in that field of practice so it was easy for me to basically teach persons and help them to understand that particular topic,” Chris explained.

As someone who liked repairing computers and then switched to teaching, Chris reflected that it is satisfying for him to teach because that would mean he is helping someone long-term.

“You can actually help them to get skills, especially living in an IT world, whereby every job is making use of a computer,” he said.

Chris’s first batch of students who wrote the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations in 2021 all attained passes from Grades One to Three.

As a teacher who is studying as well, he says that he manages his time by documenting each task he has to finish and doing the most urgent one first.

Chris shared that one of his goals would be to create his own school and build a community whereby people can create content in Guyana and they can have the skills needed for creating content.

“I wanted to build a community of persons in Guyana: photographers, videographers, animators, graphic designers and those kinds of things because those are skills we need in Guyana. But we don’t have much of those persons in Guyana.

“So, my goal is actually to bring about that kind of community,” Chris said.