CPCE students protest over meals, building conditions

Nov 30, 2013 News

While concerns have been raised about meal allowance and infrastructure of the Cyril Potter College of Education, (CPCE) officials of the Ministry of Education, (MOE) are working to address the issues.

Minister of Education Priya Manickchand addressing the gathering at yesterday’s seminar.

Protest action was initiated, yesterday, by teachers attached to the CPCE, yesterday. Calls were made for immediate repairs to the deteriorating sections of the college and decrease of the meals being served to trainees.
However, Chief Education Officer (CEO), Olato Sam, explained that efforts are underway by the Ministry of Education to address the issues.
“We have had some difficulties and some concerns with the meals programme and quantity of food that are available to trainees. We are in the process of addressing them …
“No one said anything to me. I had never heard of this issue before this morning. However, I have said to my trainee teachers that they need to set the example if there is an issue.
“We just don’t go and protest; there’s a process to have issues addressed but I assure that we will have a meeting to have those issues sorted out,” Sam added.
While the CEO did not give details into the circumstances of the protest, this newspaper was reliably told that sections of the school leaks during periods of heavy rainfall and that the quantity of food and meals served to students has reduced significantly.
“The meals have diminished significantly. From three meals per day to merely breakfast.” a source told Kaieteur News.
This newspaper also understands that even as approximately 240 teachers are accommodated at CPCE Turkeyen Campus, at least 600 teachers attend classes at the college every day.
Meanwhile, speaking at the occasion of a CPCE seminar initiated to boost the level of professionalism of teachers Education, Minister Priya Manickchand explained that there are over trained teachers within the local education sector.
“There is a call, regionally, for advanced levels of education at different sectors …This session is a discussion about the region standardizing guidelines in the teaching sector, professionalizing the teacher force by creating guidelines, rules and standards by which teachers all across the region can be measured.”
“We’re looking holistically at how we can improve the education system thereby, adding to the speedier development of Guyana. By doing that we have to integrate every sector—teachers, parents, students, environment whatever resources we have available to us… Teachers are the backbone of the system; we have to look gently but firmly at how we can get the best teachers that we can get, and how we can make those we have the best they can be, that they can be inspired to grasp those opportunities, thereby developing themselves professionally.”

This is what breakfast looks like for teachers CPCE

The key speakers of yesterday’s event included Head of the Program Management and Human Development Programme at CARICOM, Dr. Morella Joseph, President of the Guyana Teacher’s Union, Mr. Colin Bynoe and Dr. Leyland Thompson, Head of Graduate Studies at the University of Guyana.
Dr. Joseph said that there have been calls for the links between the teachers, students, schools and communities to be reinforced.
She suggested to teachers that their involvement in community projects can assist in the development of their teaching skills and ideals.
CPCE is derived from the Teachers’ Training Centre (TTC), Guyana’s first teachers’ training college, established in 1928. The college was renamed in 1976 in honor of Cyril Robert Gladstone Potter, the first Guyanese principal of the institution.