Gov’t mulls recruiting retired teachers as school counsellors

As the Education Ministry aims towards enhancing the education sector, it is mulling the possibility of having retired teachers return to the school system but this time to serve as counsellors.

This is according to Education Minister, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, who over a year ago had revealed plans by the ministry to initiate a central counselling body that would comprise of counsellors for students and even parents.

The Ministry is now, however, working on reintegrating retired teachers back into the system where they will work with the students in the area of counselling as opposed to academics.

Dr Roopnaraine had reported to another section of the media that schools might very well be seeing retired teachers act as counsellors since they have already been a part of the system and gained experience in the field.

He made this declaration while noting that the Ministry is committed to having counsellors placed in schools across the country; a move that has been in the making for quite some time.
Given that there is a large contingent of retired teachers who still have the capabilities of working in the school system, they have been the first choice of the Ministry.

“We have a very large number of recently retired teachers. We have teachers retiring at 55. At 55, they are really at the top of their game. Well I want really to look at this large group of retired teachers and recruit from within that group,” he had pointed out.

To this extent, the Ministry will be placing advertisements so that retired teachers can fill the vacancies if interested.

Subsequent to this, the teachers who have indicated their interest will be required to undergo training. Using this, they can be able to work along with students and parents to combat societal problems that affect their daily lives, according to Minister Roopnaraine.

Citing similar initiatives in other advanced countries, the Minister is hoping to follow the pattern so that counselling becomes a crucial and unfailing part of Guyana’s school system.
This initiative had been highlighted as one of the ambitions by the Minister to have education and young people remain a vital part of the country’s affairs.