Move forward with professionalising teaching - Minister Manickchand urges at CPCE education seminar
The need for professional teaching standard was emphasised today as Minister of Education Priya Manickchand delivered remarks at an education seminar conducted in the Cyril Potter College of Education’s Convention Centre, Turkeyen.
The seminar is the first in a series that will be conducted at the institution, to discuss professionalising the occupation, with a view to going forward, in this regard.
Minister Manickchand noted that in other professions there is always a closely knit body, always seeking to develop, to improve the profession and that, that body is regulated by rules and procedures.
This is not the case, however, for the teaching profession, even though the profession has perhaps the largest number of members, Minister Manickchand pointed out.
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand delivering
remarks at the Cyril Potter College of Education’s
Convention Centre, Turkeyen
“We cannot have an association, a profession, something we have pride in, without having rules, standards, procedures, because if we do, every time we break what should have been a rule or breach a standard or we fail to meet that standard, every time, one person does that, all of us are dragged down by it,” the Minister said.
“…this move to make standards and rules that guide us should not be seen as something limiting, in fact, this should be, for me, if I were you, I would see this as the most freeing, liberating thing we can do because then we will all have standards to which we should aim, we all have rules by which we could work, we all have guidelines about what we must be,” she said.
She noted that there are teachers who have no respect for authority and those who do not teach, and these are the ones who need the guidance and standards.
Atttendees at CPCE’s education seminar on the role
of professional standards in education
The Minister called on all concerned to get involved and move the process. “If we resist this, if we delay it, then we are really robbing the people on whose behalf we are claiming to delay this, because we will not be demanding of them their very best,” she noted.
To give effect to this clichÉ that teachers are the backbone of the system and that teachers would determine what Guyana looks like now and 10 years from now, she said, “we must get on with the business of standardising and professionalising and making rules for this profession as a whole,” she said.
Any delay will be detrimental and further stagnate the education sector, the Minister said, “and so in doing this, the union must get buy-in from its members, and all stakeholders must agree on going forward…in getting the buy-in, we must not delay the end result too much more.”
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand listens as Head
of the Graduate Studies, University of Guyana Dr. Leyland
Thompson addresses the CPCE education seminar on the
role of professional standards in education
Presenters at the seminar included Head of the Programme Management, Human Resource Development, CARICOM, Dr. Morella Joseph who spoke about the ‘Conceptual framework of professional standards in the education system’.
Head of Graduate Studies, University of Guyana, Dr. Leyland Thompson addressed the “Academic justification for professional standards’ and President, Guyana Teachers’ Union Colin Bynoe, ‘The relevance of professional standards to Guyana’s education system.’