Erdiston exploring online courses

Erdiston Teachers’ Training College may soon add another set of offerings to prospective students – online courses.

Addressing the 2020 Graduation Ceremony at the College’s grounds on Saturday night, Principal Dr. Patricia Saul said technology was available to increase access for adults who may find it difficult to arrange their schedules to physically enter classes and the institution must embrace this.

“Through mobile devices, electronic networking, social media and online courses, adult learners can have the opportunity to learn anytime and anywhere. Hence, it is our hope, that in the very near future, some of our continued education courses can be offered online,” she said.

In preparation for this, she revealed training had begun for a cadre of full-time staff in teaching in the online environment, “and it is our hope to expand this training to our part-time staff, so that some of our continuing education courses could be accessed online”.

“This would provide a wider cadre of persons innovative possibilities to realise lifelong learning and reduce their dependence on traditional face-to-face modalities,” she continued.

Saul highlighted only moments earlier that it was the wish of the educational institution to continue to provide suitable structures and mechanisms for the development of continuing education programmes in Barbados, while ensuring that the courses developed were enough to help participants adapt to future needs, issues and challenges of our evolving society.

Outlining the various courses offered by the college, she expressed concern that out of the 263 persons who enrolled in the programme last year, a mere seven had been males.

“This is a clear indication that our females continue to outdo the males in terms of accessing continued education opportunities and it might mean that as a college, we may have to look at some other options that may be more attractive to the males,” she added. (JMB)