Another batch of volunteer teachers ready to go

Aug 15, 2010 News

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… Ministry working towards reversing the inequity in Education provision – Baksh

Forty volunteer teachers celebrated the completion of a rigorous training programme yesterday as they awaited their assignments to school locations across the country.
Most of the volunteers will be sent into remote locations in an attempt to plug the gap created by teachers who have to take classes at the Cyril Potter College of Education (Teachers’ Training College). They will be given a monthly stipend and asked to live and work in the communities that they serve for at least one school year.

The National Volunteer Teacher Programme was initiated by the Volunteer Service Orgnaisation (VSO) and Youth Challenge Guyana (YCG) almost four years ago and is being funded through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
According to Chief Education Officer (CEO) (Ag) Roopnarine Tewari, the Ministry uses the programme to fill critical teaching vacancies and sees it as a means of promoting volunteerism as well. Meanwhile, Tara Persaud, Programme Manager for VSO expanded on the need for Volunteers to undertake initiatives like these throughout the country. She noted that the impact of the work being done by the Volunteers in their schools as well as the communities is monumental. She also pointed out that the programme is growing year after year as they keep making significant strides forward; this year they will be able to service eight out of ten administrative regions instead of the four they served last year.
Minister of Education Shaik Baksh, delivered the feature address at the graduation ceremony on Friday afternoon. He said that his Ministry is working intently to bring greater equity to the provision of education across the country.
Baksh said, “We are trying to reverse the disturbing trend where only urban centers perform well.”
He did take the time to point out however, that the underlying cause of the inequity was the lack of resources in some of the areas that were not performing well. He went on to say that the Ministry is “trying hard to break down the inequity”.
Baksh spoke of the many challenges in the Hinterland, especially in Region Eight, where there is a shortage of teachers. The Ministry, according to Baksh is working to rationalise staffing throughout the country in an effort to ensure that one region does not have more than its required quota of teachers, while another falls short. To that end, there have been a number of incentives which were implemented to allow for the employment of more teachers in the region. Minister Baksh noted that teachers in remote Hinterland communities usually have access to Housing Allowances (for teachers recruited from the Coast who did not have homes in the interior).
The Ministry, he said, is working with the World Bank on their EFA/EFTI Project to build duplexes for the teachers who reside permanently in the locations. Then there were also other allowances granted such as station and hardship allowances, while the Ministry also covers the costs of transportation in and out of the locations.
He continued to argue that the creation of resource centers in Hinterland locations-11 that would soon become 22-were also a part of the Ministry’s drive to reverse the inequity. These resource centers house libraries and reference material for teachers as well as computers and photocopiers.
The largest challenge to the equity issue however, according to Baksh, is the quality of teachers available in the system. He noted that a large part of Region Ten’s ‘good performance’ was as a result of the fact that more than 80 percent of the teachers in that region are trained graduates.
The Minister also took the opportunity to urge the volunteers to upgrade their qualifications and then come in to join the Cyril Potter College of Education. He said that Ministry representatives would meet with each of the volunteers and assess what they needed. Then they would all be provided with the necessary resource materials as the Ministry worked to engage them in distance study courses for Math and English that would make them eligible for entry to CPCE.
He closed with one final recommendation to the volunteers that they commit themselves to the task at hand. That recommendation however was unnecessary for some of the volunteers in the room. Apparently there were 32 first time volunteers but the other eight volunteers were signing up for a second year of the programme.
One of these volunteers, Ezzie Bascomb spoke to his colleagues on the joys and challenges of his time in Mahdia, where he and two other volunteers spent a year at the Mahdia Secondary School. He said that he was often questioned by friends and relatives as to why he would want to leave his job and volunteer, but one year later he had all the answers. According to Bascomb, there were so many advantages to being a volunteer.
These include having the opportunity to visit tourist sites for free, and the natural beauty that he got to enjoy every day as he went about his duties. He noted that there was a sense of fulfillment which came from being able to give back to “your country” and it was interesting to live among other people and observe their culture. He noted that there were difficulties and challenges; recounting the time he was stranded on the Mabura Road for 18 hours on his way to Mahdia and he and his fellow passengers had to spend the night in the bus. He also noted that with the expense of items in the interior locations, an out of town allowance would go a far way.
Apparently Bascomb’s little presentation struck the right chords with his listeners because Minister Baksh, who left the proceedings early, called to have the volunteers informed before the end of the graduation ceremony that the go ahead had been granted to institute an out-of-town allowance.
The volunteers will be posted to their various locations before the beginning of the new school term.

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Police Service Commission orders reinstatement of Cadet Officers

The Police Service Commission has written to Police Commissioner Henry Greene for him to explain why he did not comply with their ruling to reinstate two Cadet Officers who were demoted to Sergeants.
Sergeants Motie Dookie and Karl Wilson were demoted from their positions as Cadet Officers on January 1, 2007.
This newspaper was reliably informed that their demotion stemmed from allegations that they were linked to a tainted drug matter, in which cocaine was reportedly switched to flour.
However, they appealed their demotion, claiming that it was without reason and were reinstated by the PSC with effect from October 2008.
Sergeant Dookie is presently stationed at the Brickdam Police Station, while Wilson is said to be at Timehri.
A source at the Police Service Commission told this newspaper that following their notice of appeal, the two ranks had written to the body for an update of the status of their matter.
It was not until further queries that their matter was completed and the Commissioner advised of the findings.
The ranks had claimed in their letter to the PSC that they have served the Police Force with unblemished records and at no time were they charged or neglected their duties.
They also stated that at no time were they called by senior management of the force to discuss their alleged poor performance, neither were they notified or warned that failing to write the gazette examinations would lead to their demotion.
They told the Commission that they believe that they were unfairly treated because they did not enjoy the right to be heard by the Commission prior to their demotion.
This newspaper contacted the police and Assistant Commissioner Paulette Morrison, who is acting in the capacity of Deputy Commissioner Administration, who said that she was not familiar with the matter and assured that checks will be made to ascertain the force’s position.
Police Commissioner Henry Greene could not be immediately reached for a comment.

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Baksh laments unacceptable service in Regions
“There have been unacceptable levels of service in some of the Regions,” said Minister of Education, Shaik Baksh, even as he commented on the manual placement of some students who participated in this year’s Grade Six Assessment. According to him, there have been reports that persons have had to make several visits to some Regional Departments before they were adequately served.
Students are placed at secondary schools based on the marks that they would have attained at the Grade Six Assessment. Schools, according to the Minister are classified according to Six form schools and A, B, C and D Secondary Schools. In addition to the scores that students attain during the assessment, placement at these educational institutions is also hinged on their respective geographical location, the Minister explained. This process he said is regarded as zoning and is in place to ensure that children, as far as possible, are placed to the school closest to their residence. However, should there be need for a change in placement, the Minister noted that transfers are only done manually. “We have to do it manually because the whole system is computerised so it is a computer that allocates the placements in the first instance.”
And it is a norm for parents to seek a change in placement in the case where they would have changed their area of residence. This is especially prevalent with the numerous new housing areas that are being developed. “A lot of parents have moved over to Region Three, the East Bank and so, and we will have to accommodate them. We can’t have a child living on the East Coast and their parents have a house lot at Diamond…we will have to transfer that child to the East Bank.” According to the Minister, there have been many requests for transfers based on change of residence in addition to those situations whereby a child was placed at a low school though attaining a score for a higher Grade School. “We have to manually adjust that and we have been doing that. But when they go to the Regions they (regional officials) are dilatory and they were not really organised to deal with the numbers, especially the East Coast, I must point out.”
For this reason, the Minister said that he is currently reviewing the process to ensure that the tardy nature of manual placement does not recur. This move, he said, is expected to ensure that persons are not required to visit the respective facilities on numerous occasions for a single service. “They must be dealt with expeditiously and there will be more monitoring from the Central Ministry. Next year we will send our officers out there to help the Regional Departments to ensure more efficiency in this service so that there is no unnecessary travelling and expenses that parents will have to incur.”

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