Improved performances anticipated with teachers’ exposure to CPD

Jun 07, 2017 News

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The Ministry of Education through its training arm, the National Centre for Educational Research Development [NCERD] has not been taking its responsibility lightly.
This is particularly evident by its recent invitation to public school teachers across the country to take advantage of its Continuous Professional Development [CPD] programme.
The invitation was extended by way of an advertisement in the Sunday Edition of this newspaper which noted that teachers could apply to pursue one of a variety of training courses during the month of July when school goes into recess for the July/August holiday.
The courses ranging from Literacy and Mathematics to Special Education Needs and Health and Family Life Education, are all being offered at no cost to teachers at the nursery, primary and secondary levels.
It is imperative for teachers to pursue these courses being offered since, according to Ms. Sandra Persaud, the Curriculum Development Officer [ag] at NCERD, “CPD is designed to meet the training needs of our teachers.”
She explained that while the Cyril Potter College of Education [CPCE] and the University of Guyana [UG] offer formal training to teachers “such training alone cannot take our teachers throughout their careers.”
It has long been recognised, Persaud noted, that teachers have various developmental needs. These needs, she explained, can be detected during monitoring exercises. Once the weaknesses of a teacher or teachers within a school are observed, training in this regard is made readily available.
“This does not mean that we would offer training in particular areas alone because we also use other factors such as the results of the National Grade Six Assessment, also we take into consideration reports from our visits to the regions and we even ask the regions to share their needs and these can vary from region to region,” Persaud noted.
The CPD programme was introduced a few years ago after the Education for all Fast track Initiative [EFA-FTI] came to an end. The EFA-FTI was intended to give keen attention to filling the gaps in the primary education system in the quest to meet the Millennium Development Goal which targeted access to a good education service by the year 2015.
CPD, moreover, was an expanded version of the EFA-FTI. The initiative takes on a mainly content and methodology training approach and, according to Persaud, “it is intended to boost teachers’ performances by giving them new knowledge and ideas to work with.”
According to the Curriculum Development Officer [ag], the CPD training, serves to add to other training sessions that are offered by NCERD throughout the course of the year.
Described as a more focused training programme, the CPD programme allows teachers to apply to participate in a single subject area per year.
However, multiple teachers from a single school can participate in CPD training each in a different subject area. This can prove to be particularly beneficial since, according to Persaud, teachers can share their knowledge at a mandated staff development segment that the CPD programme entails.
“The aim is to have teachers better equipped to teach the subjects they applied to be trained for but teachers can be able to share with the other teachers within their schools or even with teachers from other schools within their regions…,” Persaud said.
The CPD programme usually spans a period of one week and allows teachers to participate in individual and group presentations, be a part of interactive sessions and complete a test at the end of the programme.
Also they are tasked with doing a project and staff development session, at their respective schools, after which they are furnished with a certificate of completion.
According to Persaud, since NCERD does not have the capacity to cater to the region’s wide training, it works in close collaboration with CPCE, UG and also recruits the services of trained and experienced teachers to administer the CPD training courses.
The programme affords teachers a total of two credits. Persaud explained that earning CPD credits is in fact a major criterion for promotion. This means that in order for a trained teacher to be appointed to the position of Senior Assistant Master/Mistress they would need to acquire a total of six CPD credits, among other things.
Added to this, to move from the aforementioned position, it is not based solely on years of service but requires CPD credits in addition to the Teacher Annual Appraisal Grade.
Essentially promotions within the education system require different CPD Courses and amounts of credits.

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