Woman of Substance…Coretta McDonald – offering a great deal to society as an educator and trade unionist

Mar 08, 2017 News

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(Ms. Coretta McDonald is featured as one of our nation’s outstanding professional women as we commemorate International Women’s Day (IWD) today.)

Attached to her name is a number of auspicious titles including educator for more than two decades and outstanding trade unionist. But she is so much more. Her achievements are surprising, especially given the fact that she is barely

42 years old. She is Coretta McDonald.
Many know her as the General Secretary of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), but only last year she assumed the Presidency of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) and she simultaneously holds the position of Third Vice President of the Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT) in addition to Supernumerary Head Teacher of Smith’s Memorial Primary.
This outstanding professional woman has for years delivered educational lessons to her charges without pride or prejudice, and has been able to efficiently balance her other portfolios along with her personal life with nothing short of laudable precision.
She is able to do all this, looking as classy as a super model.
But exactly how did she end up here? At what point of her life did she decide that education would be among her professional marks in this life?
When asked the forgoing questions McDonald shared, “I never thought that I would be a teacher. Teaching was nowhere on my list.” Having seen her mother and several aunts engaged in the profession barely having time for themselves, even during vacation time, McDonald simply was not intrigued. She was more inclined to the banking profession. But according to McDonald, “destiny has a way of catching up with you.”
You see, as a young child she was rather brilliant and was able to skip at least two classes at the primary level, thus allowing her to move to the Common Entrance class at an unprecedented rate. She first entered the Common Entrance Class at the age of eight. Although she had three attempts, McDonald was successful at her first try.
She was soon after on her way to secondary school, thus by the age of 13 she’d completed this level of her studies.
McDonald was inclined to join the world of work rather than commence university at the time, but was too young to enter the banking field she had a passion for.
But as fate would have it, by the time she was 14, she was given an opportunity to join the teaching profession. It was in fact the love for reading that caused her to notice a Ministry of Education advertisement in the daily newspapers seeking applications for persons desirous of becoming teachers. This all occurred at a time, McDonald recalled, when there was an existing shortage of teachers.
“Lots and lots of teachers were just going off to the Bahamas, going off to Bermuda, and we had this brain drain situation…this was in the early ‘90s. I decided, when I saw that ad, that maybe I could use this as a stepping stone while I waited for the age to become a bank teller…this was my fantasy,” recounted McDonald.
This was in spite of the fact that her mother had given her the options of either pursing one more year study at secondary school or simply staying home to cook and clean. Although her mother was initially unaware that she had applied to enter the profession, she eventually warmed up to the idea.
McDonald’s first teaching experience was at the then David Rose Community High School in West Ruimveldt. Upon entry to the profession she was convinced that she was merely “killing time” until she would have attained the age to venture into a more preferable profession.
She was however assured since then by an Education Officer that she would learn to love being a teacher.
Twenty-seven years later and McDonald is still very much involved in the profession she entered at the tender age of 14. Like she was told many years ago, McDonald admitted during an interview that she has nothing but love for what she does.
She spoke of the various experiences that she has had with her students and pupils over the years.
“I wouldn’t trade this profession as a teacher for anything else; I have forgotten completely that I never wanted to become a teacher,” related McDonald as she added, “If I were to look at it by salary then I would have been out of teaching a long, long time ago; you get your satisfaction from the students you teach…when you teach and at the end of that lesson you see smiles on your children’s faces that suggest that they enjoyed the lesson, that gives you a deep sense of satisfaction.”
Although she has since been seconded to the GTU because of her union involvement, she asserted that “I really enjoyed my stay in the classroom…I really enjoyed working with children and even now while I am not in the classroom I still find time to talk to young people…I would go to schools and have talks at schools.”
According to the mother of one son, who has been able to balance her teaching career with trade union work, “I find quite a lot of joy in talking to children because many of our children are looking for direction. They are looking for someone for direction, and if they don’t find it in the home then they look for it in school…when they don’t find it in the school then obviously they will look elsewhere [and] sometimes not the places we want them to go,” McDonald said.
But despite “enjoying being a teacher and giving to children the kind of attention that they so need,” McDonald had long recognised that she had so much more to give. It was for this reason that she embraced the life of a trade unionist.
Although she started off as a mere branch representative, she recalled that by 2006 she was elected the youngest General Secretary in the movement after competing against a number of seasoned trade unionists within the GTU. She has served as General Secretary under three union presidents – Colwyn King, Colin Bynoe and the current President, Mark Lyte.
But she did not stop there. Last year, McDonald made history yet again in the trade union movement when she competed, yet again, against seasoned opponents and secured the place as President of the GTUC. This achievement saw her becoming the second woman to become president of this union. She also took her union involvement to another level when she was elected to serve as the Third Vice President of the Caribbean Union of Teachers.
McDonald continues to prove herself a crucial asset and has plans to make major changes along the way that can be sustained by others who will follow in her footsteps.

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