Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the Cave Hill Campus, Dr. Jennifer Obidah
University official points to need for change
Wed, 01/11/2017 - 12:00am
As countries in the Caribbean seek to train teachers to impart knowledge to future generations, it is being suggested that changes may need to be made to the entry requirements for some programmes to ensure that a greater number of persons can be trained.
The suggestion has come from Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Dr. Jennifer Obidah. Her comments came yesterday morning as she addressed the opening ceremony of the annual meeting of the Eastern Caribbean Joint Board of Teacher Education in the Shell Suite of The Solutions Centre at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies. The Humanities and Education Dean made the point as she referred specifically to the Early Childhood Education programme offered by the UWI, which requires entrants to the programme to possess certification in Mathematics from the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), but often, she indicated, they do not have that certification.
“…There is a Math requirement, but in truth and in fact they don’t need the Math requirement in the work that they do. So they may go through the entire programme, they know that before they graduate or in order to graduate they have to have that Math CXC, but in fact they struggle to pass it. So where they may in fact pass all of the courses, then they are unable to graduate because of that,” she lamented.
Dr. Obidah is adamant that this is something that needs to be looked at in earnest. Moreover, she admitted that while these teachers may need a certificate in Mathematics, she is not certain that the Caribbean Secondary Examination Council certificate in Mathematics is the “right requirement”.
“So if we could look at the number of persons who actually complete the programme, but who because of this requirement may have difficulty actually graduating, it may be an area that we could address. Obviously there is a lot to take into account, but it is just something I thought about,” the Dean added. (JRT)