All unqualified teachers will be trained within the next 2-3 years- Minister Baksh

THE Ministry of Education will be embarking on a campaign to revitalise the education system and one aspect of this will be training of teachers to better deliver the school’s curriculum.
Minister of Education, Mr. Shaik Baksh, said the training programme will last for approximately three years and if the teachers refuse to be trained they will have to exit the system.
“Only if we have trained, qualified people can we hope to improve the quality of education. Many unqualified people are lost in the school system so we want to turn that around and have trained teachers,” he added.

Currently, Guyana has approximately 57 per cent trained teachers in the education system. Minister Baksh said the Education Strategic Plan has outlined strategies to increase that number to 70 per cent over the next five years. He noted, however, that the remaining 30 per cent will not be unqualified teachers. “They may not be trained but they will have to have the basic CXC qualifications inclusive of Mathematics and English Language.”

From next September, no teacher will be employed unless he/she has five subjects Grades One to Three at the CXC examinations, he declared.

Addressing the issue of students not performing in the schools in South Georgetown, the Minister said that, “We are effecting a lot of changes in the education system. One of the important changes that we hope to have is equity in the education sector, that is, we must not look at the few schools at the top that have been performing well because they have resources.”
He noted that the Ministry has recognised that there are ‘top producing’ schools and he knows that many parents may be aspiring for their children to attend these schools but that is not the solution.

“Here in Georgetown I am deeply concerned so we must now move towards getting all these schools in the South - the nursery, primary and secondary schools to improve their standards,” he said. Minister Baksh acknowledged that while this is a “big challenge”, the Ministry plans to allocate more resources to these schools so that they can be upgraded. “We recognise the weaknesses and in recognition of the weaknesses, we are working to remedy this. It cannot happen overnight but we have started already. We want to see every child be able to read, write and calculate,” the Minister said. (GINA)