Almost 1,000 untrained teachers are set to begin their online training through the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) on March 1.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand made this announcement on Tuesday evening, during the sod-turning ceremony for the Martyrs’ Ville Nursery School.
Minister Manickchand said the initiative is in keeping with the PPP/C Government’s goal to transform the education sector by ensuring that teachers are trained. As such, teachers in far-flung regions can access the service and upgrade their qualifications.
“There will come a time when trained teachers will have to upgrade themselves and that too is not far off. They will have to upgrade themselves yearly to be able to continue teaching our children and that is because we owe it to our students to translate wealth and resources into making sure their lives are better than the generation that came before them…So we cannot continue to do things the same way,” Minister Manickchand said.
The Ministry expects that teachers would capitalise on the availability of training to enhance their qualifications and to learn new, modern teaching techniques.
“We will have to embrace developing ourselves so that we could match what is coming to this country, the development that is coming which will see proportionate development of our people or else we will all be in trouble. We have that mandate at the Ministry to make sure those we train, those we have the responsibility to teach are taught and trained in a manner that makes them capable of owning all of Guyana, and all of its resources,” Minister Manickchand said.
In 1992, only about 30 per cent of local teachers were trained, now about 80 per cent of teachers are trained.
