Latest update January 22nd, 2025 3:40 AM
Jan 05, 2012 News
“Forget who does the teaching, at the end of the day if our children can get a good pass mark that
is the important thing. These are the children who will be our future so we have to examine different and new ways of making sure that we can achieve the results we are looking for.”
This candid assertion was made by Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, even as she commented on a proposal that was made last year to import Mathematics and Science teachers.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon at a press briefing in February of last year, had spoken of a decision made by the previous administration to import teachers to handle those two crucial subject areas.
The decision, which had initially received some flak from the Colin Bynoe-headed Guyana Teachers Union, was made in recognition of the fact that Guyana did not have sufficient qualified teachers in the two areas to teach the nation’s students in order to secure satisfactory pass rates, Dr. Luncheon had noted.
However, Manickchand, who was appointed in December 2011 by President Donald Ramotar, in an invited comment recently said that the Government is prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure that children are given the needed assistance and by extension the best possible chance to do well while in the public education system.
“I wouldn’t call it importing…if we don’t have the expertise to help our children and our teachers we need to examine new methods to ensure that they do. We have always done that…I remember having a Sri Lankan teacher in primary school so there are different things we can do. I see it as improving the skills-set of our country with a view to making sure our children do well,” Manickchand noted.
Not unique
The proposal to import teachers has also been linked to the migration of qualified teachers which has over the years left a gaping void in the public education system. But according to Minister Manickchand, the migration situation is certainly not unique to Guyana even as she pointed out that the world today can be considered a “little global village. We have people moving all over, even from the United States to different parts of the world for many different reasons…for some it is financial, for others it is exploratory and for some other people it is just for the experience. This is the cost of globalization; people wanting to migrate and travel and so on…”
Addressing this challenge, the Minister noted, is to ensure that there is always an adequate amount of trained teachers to cater to the needs of the public education system. She also noted that at this juncture, the sector can boast of having the most trained teachers in the country’s history.
“What we have to do is to take that up to almost 100 per cent where we have excess so that we cater for those teachers who want to join the global effort of moving on…”
And there are already measures that are being examined by the Ministry of Education, Manickchand said. The Ministry’s efforts are however not limited to training additional teachers but there are also measures to ensure that the quality of teachers’ lives are improved.
This approach, she said, had commenced with former Minister of Education Shaik Baksh, and will undoubtedly be sustained. “It wouldn’t stop here I am currently looking at some of the things we can do now to make it easier for teachers but at the end of the day it has to be the passion for teaching that attracts someone to the profession.”
Alluding to the teaching profession as “an almost frightening job”, the Minister pointed to the fact that teachers are entrusted with molding the minds of children and therefore are charged with determining what they become.
Overwhelming job
“Here you have a classroom of children and it could be very overwhelming…”
However, she noted that there are positive sides to the teaching profession as teachers are the ones who are entrusted to determine what Guyana would look like in the future.
“That is a huge responsibility and I believe you are ready to honour the challenges that present themselves because you are in the profession,” she had told a gathering of teachers.
In light of this, she disclosed that efforts are already being directed at addressing the needs of teachers with a view of making their profession more worthwhile. She pointed out that while a huge raise is not currently on the agenda “we are examining ways to make your life better; we are examining those with pleasure because I believe that if anybody should be made comfortable, it is the teachers.”
Manickchand asserted though that while all teachers may believe that they are deserving of a better salary they must also seek to perform to the best of their ability. She stressed too that persons should not opt to accept a teaching career and fail to live up to the details of the outlined contract.
“If you find that the job is not paying you enough and you need to come and waste time in the classroom then perhaps the classroom is not the place for you, the Minister warned. “You cannot accept the job and then don’t deliver, it is neither an honourable thing to do, it is certainly illegal and outside of that it is immoral…”
She alluded to teachers who are less than proactive who seem satisfied with turning up at school late and fail to perform optimally. These teachers, according to the Minister, are those who are guilty of giving every other teacher a bad name.
“While we can use every teacher in this country I would prefer not to have teachers like these…if you don’t perform a child gets damaged, many children get damaged, an entire generation can go down the line…So I am going to be insisting on standards and qualities that I know that are in place that we just want to make sure work.”
Manickchand admitted that she has an enormous amount of respect for the passion that teachers have in their hearts and the dedication that they have for students in light of the fact that they make sacrifices since teaching is not the best paying job.
“I will always stand in admiration of teachers and with me at the head of the Ministry you can be sure that we will be examining ways to make your life better.”
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