Organized chaos at CPCE!

May 28, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The Stabroek News of May 18th, 2012 carried a letter to the editor in which, it appears, a current trainee teacher of the Associate Degree Programme highlights a number of inadequacies of the programme and in general of the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE).
I am very disappointed that the trainee teacher chose not to include his or her name. Speaking the truth, as this individual has done, should cause no fear. Please permit me some space to make some observations as it relates to CPCE.
Firstly, I would say that CPCE and NCERD are the most troubled sectors of the education system in Guyana. Interestingly, both are responsible for training teachers in Guyana.
Yet, there is no link between the two when one looks at the organizational chart of the Ministry of Education.
It is solely for this reason that there is always a conflict of ideas and theories when a trained teacher attends an NCERD workshop. The only relationship between the two is that the two heads meet at Education System Committee meetings.
Secondly, the Associate Degree Programme (ADE) should never have started. CPCE was not ready. A list of courses was presented but modules for all the courses were not available. Here is an example. All trainees in the ADE programme were required to do a math course called ‘Mathematical Thinking’ in their first semester. This course was never done.
Instead, trainees were subjected to do a course called ‘Mathematical Sequencing and Prediction’ which is supposed to be done in the second semester. In the first batch, all trainees, except math majors did this course. In the second batch, all trainees including math majors did this course.
This is a clear indication that the plan in place is not being followed. Several courses did not have modules when the ADE programme started. To fix this problem, CPCE took many of the modules from the older programmes and changed the cover to reflect the ADE programme.
Apart from this, many of the modules are riddled with errors. I remember some students had to write a Literature examination three times because CPCE kept setting an examination for the wrong novels. This observation must be taken into context.
In 2010, then Chairman of the Board, Olato Sam, now Chief Education Officer, took umbrage when GTU dared to say that Ministry of Education was not ready for the ADE programme. His letter was published in the Stabroek News of 20th September, 2010 accusing GTU of trying to score ‘cheap political points’. In it Mr. Sam outlines all the steps taken by CPCE to start the ADE programme. Now, one has to question Mr. Sam’s outline in view of the complaints made by the trainee teacher.
The greatest crime at CPCE has to do with examinations. In the first ADE batch, a challenging examination was set for the course ‘Mathematical Sequencing and Prediction’. It demanded much from teachers.
This was a step in the right direction. The result was that there were large failures across the country. Rather than trying to correct the deficiencies of the tutors or the course, CPCE sets a ‘watered-down’ examination for the second batch.
They lowered the standards so significantly that trainees finished a two-hour examination in 40 minutes. I wonder how the University of Guyana feels about this. They will not say but their reason for doing this is that there is political pressure on them to mass-produce teachers so that there can be 75% trained teachers in the education system which is in the Education Strategic Plan 2008-2013.
Trainee teachers are subjected to many more atrocities at CPCE than is believable. Only recently trainees of one of the Centre were subjected to write an examination in ‘blackout’. Few of the trainees completed the examination mainly because they could not see to write.
These geniuses, who decided that examinations should be written from 16:00 to 18:00 hours, never took in consideration that most of the Centers do not have standby generators. An ever greater atrocity is that students write examination in their first year and get results, if they are lucky, in their third year.
Then the Ministry of Education says to teachers that students’ books ought to be marked every day. It would be nice if MOE can tell CPCE to mark trainee’s exams every semester. In some cases, I don’t think that the papers are even marked.
A good example to substantiate is that fact that 24 out of 78 students passed a Physical Examination recently at two Centers. All trainees are claiming that they did not fail. They have asked for a review. They will not get a review.
This is the dictatorial nature of CPCE’s administration. It would be nice if the administration of CPCE can explain why graduation has been pushed back to November rather than July. I do not buy the reason that it is to have the first batch of the ADE trainees and the other trainees graduate at the same time.
My feeling is that so mismanaged are the programmes that CPCE has now realized that the trainees have not done a particular course.
I would advise the trainee teacher who wrote the letter to get use to this sort of treatment.
It is what awaits you in the public education system. We, like you, are still waiting on our clothing stipend. We, like you, are being experimented with daily through ideas like automatic promotion and interventions. We, like you, attempt to complete impossible tasks and futile records.
We, like you, do not know what lunacy of the Ministry of Education awaits us. We, like you, are waiting representation in many matters from GTU. Although, you should note that Mr. Bynoe is GTU’s representative on CPCE’s board.
We, like you, are hoping that the Honourable Minister of Education and Dr. Solomon (Chairperson of the Board) bring some sanity to this organized chaos.
Mohammed S. Hussain

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