Education system boosted as 336 teachers graduate
Chief Education Officer Olato Sam tonight saluted all of the nation’s teachers and educators for what he described as their tireless contributions to the improvement of the education system, as he delivered the feature address at the Cyril Potter College of Education’s 79th graduation ceremony.
Best graduating teacher Veronica Jeffrey receives
the Prime Minister’s prize from Permanent Secretary
of the Ministry of Education Delma Nedd
He said Government’s investment in the training and upgrading of educational facilities must be matched with the quality of the teachers necessary to take the system forward'
CPCE is on the upsurge and the graduates, according to Sam, must reflect the quality of investments being made towards their training.
He urged the 336 graduates to “not be complacent and let others denigrate your chosen profession, stand up, especially to those who don’t have any idea or understand the sacrifices that you go through to make a difference”.
Some of the graduating teachers at the 79th CPCE
graduation ceremony at the National Cultural Centre
He also reminded those who were successful to continue studying so as to improve themselves and those who will benefit from their teaching.
CPCE’s Principal, Viola Rowe said that the institution remains committed to its mandate of preparing men and women from all regions of the country for formal entry into the teaching system, “using both face to face and distance modules (print and computer assisted). We are confident of that our graduates are capable of providing high quality instruction to students in urban and rural classrooms of Guyana, contributing to the national development goal of our having a competent citizenry”.
CEO of the Ministry of Education Olato Sam addressing
teachers at the 79th CPCE graduation ceremony at the
National Cultural Centre
The principal said that 788 students initially registered for the academic year 2012 – 2013, 17% males and 88% females for the programmes of Associate Degree, Trained Teachers’ Certificate and the Teacher Upgrading Programmes. She mentioned some of the challenges as being unable to attract enough part – time staffers hence the need to utilise full-time staffers to compensate for this shortfall, the absence of technology support in some schools and an inability to incorporate ICT in the teaching /learning situation. This, she noted, is being addressed by the Education Ministry’s drive to equip all schools with ICT laboratories.
Principal of the CPCE Viola Rowe addressing graduating
teachers at the 79th CPCE graduation ceremony
The need to get some stakeholders to “buy-in” to the need for regular attendance resulted in some of the trainees withdrawing from the CPCE.
Successes listed included the design of the Induction Year Programme, course reviews and development, the use of the Teaching Practicum (a semester and classroom observation instrument), the procurement of furniture for the CPCE’s library, an emergency generator to power the campus, two ICT laboratories, an electronic student records system, closer links with other institutions such as the University of Guyana and the National Center for Education Resource Development, continuous staff evaluation and human resource development programmes which enabled some staffers to pursue further studies.
Seventy-four (74) of the graduates are now trained in early childhood teaching, 110 for the primary level and 156 are certified to teach at the secondary level.
Prize winning graduating teachers at the 79th CPCE
graduation ceremony at the National Cultural Center
Delivering the charge was UG’s Vice Chancellor, Dr. Jacob Opadeyi. He reminded the newly qualified teachers that it was a career full of stress and not much thanks, but they should be sympathetic, kind, bold, consistent, good role models and keep their faith steady as they go into the classroom.
He too, urged the teachers to keep developing themselves, hinting that a soon to be launched on-line degree programme by the university was one that they should take advantage of and pursue.
The 79th CPCE graduation exercise was held under the theme “Transforming dreams into reality”.