Number of teachers trained; still room for improvement

Between 2011 and 2015, some 794 teachers were trained, certified and awarded Associate Degrees in Education in the areas of Early Childhood, Primary, Secondary and Technical Vocational Education.

 

Dr. Babalola Ogunkola, Chair of the Eastern Caribbean Joint Board of Teacher Education (ECJBTE), spoke to that figure while addressing the opening ceremony of the annual two-day meeting of the Board yesterday morning in the Shell Suite of the Solutions Centre at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies. Through such work, Ogunkola said the ECJBTE has been helping to alleviate the challenge of an inadequate number of trained teachers in schools across the Eastern Caribbean.

 

Ogunkola’s comments came as he revealed that there is still room for improvement, as only 70.39 per cent of the 1128 persons that were enrolled in the various programmes actually graduated. He said this is a cause for concern as many of the persons that did not graduate are still in schools teaching. Given that reality, he said the governments of the member states of the ECJBTE should create a policy to address the issue of those who fail or refuse to enrol at all in a teachers’ training programme, but are teaching within the system.

 

He went on to indicate that more teachers were applying for enrolment in primary education programmes, than were enrolling in the other areas of study. He said therefore there is an urgent need to have more trained teachers in those areas. His comments came as he said the figures show that the programme with the highest graduation rate of 85.44 per cent is secondary education, while the programme with the lowest rate of graduation is Early Childhood Education. Ogunkola said that the latter is an area that needs to be addressed as investments in Early Childhood Education have several long term benefits and so he is urging all governments in the Eastern Caribbean to invest more in the training of Early Childhood Education teachers.

 

“Let us remember that Early Childhood Education is the foundation upon which other levels of education are built,” he said.

 

The meeting which concludes today has brought together representatives of teacher colleges and of the Ministries of Education from Anguilla, Antigua, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Montserrat, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados. (JRT)