School of the Nations launches C certificate in Educational Lead
The School of the Nations (SON) yesterday launched its Cambridge Certificate in Educational Leadership programme with a Caribbean Conference on Educational Leadership, which was attended by educators from across the country and around the world.
The conference, which ends today, is being hosted with the support of the Ministry of Education and the British High Commission. Dozens of teachers were in attendance as well as regional education administrative staff, the British High Commissioner Greg Quinn, representative of the Cambridge International Examinations Lucila Marquez and Director of National Centre for Education Resource Development (NCERD) Jennifer Cumberbatch.
The event inaugurated what is expected to be a four-month programme, SON’s Director Dr Brian O’Toole related yesterday. The certificate programme will also facilitate idea exchange with teachers from the United States, who through the organisation ‘Limited Resource Teacher Training,’ will be travelling to Guyana for a few weeks to work in the interior.
“This Educational Leadership certificate is actually very locally created with the support and assessment and assurance of Cambridge people behind it…teachers at the end of it will submit or heads at the end of it will submit a portfolio which basically has to have evidence of thinking and change within it and the impact that it has had on their students,” Marquez explained yesterday.
During the opening ceremony, Marquez had said that the aim was to support teachers in developing their thinking and practices to ensure lasting improvements in the quality of the learning experience for their students. She noted that for this “new world order,” there was a need for children to be educated differently as they are being educated for jobs that do not yet exist.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Minister of Education Nicolette Henry in her speech, which was delivered by the head of NCERD in her absence.
“Historically, entrepreneurship has not been encouraged or supported for everyone, but now, we need to educate our nation to be future entrepreneurs for the industries that will emerge from our developing nation,” Cumberbatch read.
The aim of yesterday’s conference, Dr O’Toole told a press briefing following the opening ceremony, is to develop education systems through partnerships in order to overcome issues.
Yesterday’s opening ceremony was also followed by workshops led by invited guests Yassin Sarr, of the Starfish NGO, an organisation in The Gambia; Gordon Naylor, representative of the Nancy Campbell Aca-demy, a sister school of SON located in Canada; Dr Farzin Rahmani, of the UK and Zambia; Aziz Royesh, of the Marafat School for Girls in Afghanistan; Emily Finnegan, of Limited Resource Teacher Training; Keressa Carrington, representative of the Association of Business Executives in the Caribbean; Dr Soma Stout, of One Hundred Healthier Lives, a US organization; and Brian Backer, of EPIC Guyana.
“This is the chance to begin to explore new paradigms in development. S it’s not just an odd cause there’s a plan to this and t plan is to offer high qual courses from the best possib universities, the best possib agencies, and to get inspir by these people to realise th if people like Yassin can do in Gambia, one of the poor countries in Africa, if A can do it in a war-torn cou try…,” Dr O’Toole sa before suggesting that w similar efforts, the sam strides can be achieved loc ly.
“Being in the US the p ception of Africa was ‘the poor people who need to saved.’ These developi nations that need people come in and save them a that hadn’t been my expe ence—the women that I w around did not need savin they did not need to empowered, they we already strong. What th needed were opportunit and chances to show wh they could do,” Sarr stat yesterday, further supporti Dr O’Toole’s point.
Sarr related that she wor with women and girls fro low economic backgrounds provide them with econom opportunities. The organi tion dedicates itself empowering 100 girls eve year.
“We don’t need saving a we don’t need saviours, wh we need [are] collaborat and people who will acco pany us in our journey a what we need is for them