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Education Officer addresses situation of teachers attending UG
Things did not run as smoothly as they should have run regarding teachers in Berbice who attended the University of Guyana Berbice Campus (UGBC) during the last school year.
These sentiments were shared by Regional Education Officer of Region Six, Mrs Shafiran Bhajan. She stated that the physical absence of the teachers from the classroom to attend UG is severely impacting the system, since some teachers attend classes as many as three days weekly.
Shafiran Bhajan
Some matters with the teachers’ UG timetables were not done to the best that they could have been done.
“When we analyzed the [teachers’ UG] timetables themselves, we saw that people doing the same courses… some applied for release for earlier times, like some going to a 9:15 [am] class (at UG) and people going [to] the same course going to an 11:15 class, so we found disparity and professional ethics.. and personal integrity were compromised by the teachers.”
Bhajan said that teachers should be more honest. She lauded the leniency of the Ministry of Education (MOE) with regards to teachers’ attendance to UG.
“In] other countries you go [to university] during the holiday season for courses; you must be a graduate before you enter teaching at the secondary level of education. You must be a trained teacher before you come to teach the primary level.
“Nowhere in the world would you find teachers using the children’s school time to go to university and to go to college,”she said.
“If you look from 2000 to now, how many teachers would have gained their [university] Degrees, and the salary would go up so much. They enjoy a better quality of life, socially and economically, and there is a very strong relationship between the social economic status and the production in the country,”she posited.
She noted that in the past, the In- Service Teacher Training Programme used to be held after school. CPCE is now held after school; however teachers use school time to write CPCE Exams, a difficulty noted by the officer. The Ministry of Education (MOE) has been working together with CPCE to allow more of the exams to be held after school.
There are 189 teachers currently attending UG while more will apply for the September term. Sources have told Kaieteur News, that, to address the high rate of teacher absence to attend UG, the MOE is currently looking at the attendance of teachers and is trying very hard to get substitute teachers, to replace teachers who go on Maternity Leave. This will be done in the very near future.
Bhajan went on to say that fewer teachers are migrating to foreign school systems, and linked this to increased remuneration and motivation. The focus she said is on training teachers and that the MOE allows them to attend UG during instructional time. Teachers are usually entitled 1 ½ days to attend UG during the school week. They sign a 5- year contract with the Government of Guyana to serve the education system 5 years after their completion at UG.
Bhajan noted that the MOE’s Strategic Plan is “meeting the quality imperative”. She added that “in spite of some of the constraints”, the past school year was rewarding “but we still have many things that we can improve upon”.
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