Doing better by our teachers

One of the issues that arose out of the various public pronouncements made during the course of the 2019 Education Month activities was the importance of building a cadre of teachers strong enough to adequately deliver the curriculum to children across the country, taking account of the increasingly weighty demands that will be placed on the country’s education system, going forward. It is, of course, acknowledged that the challenges confronting the country’s education system go beyond the sufficiency of teachers though the nexus between a high-quality teaching corps and the realization of the quality of education to which we aspire can hardly be denied.

In some of his own public pronouncements whilst participating in this year’s Education Month activities President Granger sought to make the point about raising the level of teaching skills as a corollary to raising the standard of education across the board. Nowhere, perhaps, was this more pointed than in the course of his address at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) to announce that his administration’s effort had yielded a $50 million grant from the People’s Republic of China to finance the acquisition of equipment to add to the College’s science teaching capabilities.

Interestingly enough, while the main focus of the engagement was on properly thanking the Chinese government for what, in the context of building capacity at the CPCE was a decidedly generous gift, the President also pointed his address, substantially, in the more general direction of the importance of upgrading the country’s teaching resources at the level of classroom delivery, seeking it seemed to deliver a message to the effect that while infrastructure and physical resources are important to the advancement of the teaching/learning process, there can be no substitute for a cadre of trained and (equally important) committed teachers if our education system is to accomplish its goals.

What the President had to say at the CPCE certainly gives cause for reflection on the wider challenges associated with teacher education, not least what we understand to be a seriously underresourced CPCE, used to having to go without sufficient equipment and instructors to execute its teacher-training functions without undue inconvenience and disruption. This has been one of the more troublesome challenges facing the CPCE in its quest to deliver adequate numbers of trained teachers to schools across the country. One might add, that over time and across political administrations, promises to significantly enhance the capabilities of the CPCE in terms of remedying the chronic shortage of resources have, to a large extent, been characterised by rhetoric.

Our own ‘intelligence’ deriving from discourses with graduates of the CPCE is that the scarcity

of instructors in critical subject areas is serious and can (and probably does) interfere with the College’s ability to graduate competent subject specialists in every instance. We are told, as well, that the library services at the College do not match what is required in terms of students’ research pursuits. All of this, of course, makes the process of effective teacher training both more tedious and more challenging.

Viewed against that backdrop the question certainly arises as to whether the September 26th pronouncements at the CPCE by the President can be interpreted to be a pointing of the way forward in terms of state policy on the importance of doing what is necessary to deliver greater numbers of highly trained teachers into schools across the nation. And why not. After all, it was the President himself who declared with unmistakable deliberateness that “the untrained teacher has no place in the future of our educational system” a pronouncement which, while not overlooking the fact that at some point early in their careers teachers will, of necessity, be untrained, seeks to make the point that, going forward, our teaching services will not be disposed to being littered with what one might call untrained dinosaurs, that is to say, persons in the system who simply have an aversion (for whatever reason) to being trained.

If it did not take President Granger’s pronouncement to make us aware that trained teachers are, as he put it, “central to achieving the aim of education which is to produce graduates equipped with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values for their personal development” as well as for the qualitative growth of the education system as a whole, it is more than a little reassuring to be told that these sensitivities exist at the highest decision-making levels in government. The President’s sentiments, must, of course, be matched, by a demonstrable commitment by the state to following through on those undertakings. This is where, in times past, the rubber has hit the road.

If we are, for example to arrive at some point in the near future, at a junction where the untrained teacher becomes virtually a creature of the past, there is need to begin now to lay the foundation for the realization of that goal. That means, in the first instance, that official pronouncements must be matched with demonstrable action.

There are two critical challenges to be met and overcome here. The first has to do with significantly upgrading the conditions of service afforded the nation’s teachers. This has become a somewhat controversial issue but it is not one that can be evaded any longer. More favourable conditions should apply not only to emoluments and attendant material perks but to opportunities for teachers to further qualify themselves in specializations that will add further value to what they have to offer and by extension to the quality of the curriculum. To keep pace with the developmental demands associated with education we must position our teachers to raise their game continually, to go beyond the training that they would have received at the CPCE level, and into new and emerging disciplines and techniques associated with delivering classes including those that are technology-linked. Contextually, our policy-makers must understand that where the incentives and opportunities for professional growth and personal development do not compare favourably with the effort which the trained teacher is required to put in and where official undertakings are not matched by concrete action we run the risk of the system being littered with frustrated malcontents who will almost certainly end up simply going through the motions. In those circumstances, it is the policy-makers and not the frustrated teachers that must shoulder most of the blame.

Nothing of course, is more important, than creating the objective conditions that offer the best chance of delivering the trained teacher envisaged by the President, that is to say a trained teacher who, in terms of both aptitude and attitude, is up to the task of effectively delivering a curriculum that is inextricably linked to the country’s development agenda. Here, it should be borne in mind that if our education system is to follow the country’s development trajectory then teaching itself will inevitably throw up new and demanding challenges. The training that they receive must equip them to confront and overcome those challenges. That can only be done by further upgrading already trained teachers, introducing them to new skills and aptitudes, many of which will be technology-linked. This is necessary if their skills are to match developmental demands.