An Update on Teachers Without Pedagogical Training

Carol Babb

In early February, the Ministry of Education announced that upwards of a thousand teachers stand to lose their jobs in the coming academic year should they not obtain the requisite teaching license.  Since then a concerted effort has been made by a majority of those educators to meet the requirements necessary to become certified in pedagogy.  This afternoon, News Five spoke with Chief Education Officer Doctor Carol Babb who said that the ministry has been receiving numerous applications from across the country.  Those applications have all been processed and the results were delivered to respective general managers on Friday.

Dr. Carol Babb, Chief Education Officer

“In February, the minister launched the special permit.  He signed an S.I., a statutory instrument, whereby teachers whose licenses will expire by June 2007 and if they satisfy certain criteria then they would be awarded the special permit.  So he formed a special group and I am the chair of that committee and we have been meeting ever since February and we have completed all the applications that we have received.  We have processed seven hundred and thirty-five application.  A hundred and fifty-four applicants did not need to apply because their licenses are still valid.  Persons who need to apply were those whose licenses will expire by June of next year, 2017.  So a hundred and fifty-four of them did not need to apply but they did apply.”

Isani Cayetano

“Now in terms of some of the teachers whose existing licenses are up next year, what are the consequences should they not satisfy the required criteria?”

Dr. Carol Babb

“Well to put it quite bluntly or quite frankly, those teachers will not be eligible for employment.  In order for you to teach you must have a valid license and if you applied for the special permit and you satisfied one of the criteria which is, you are enrolled in a training program and you’ve satisfied seventy percent of that training program needs then we award you a special permit.  If you live in a geographic area where training is hard to access then we also give you a special permit which could extend up to three years.  Also, we have given preschool teachers a special permit because we did not have sufficient training available for them to access and when we talk about preschool teachers we are talking about teachers who teach three and four-year-olds and up to Standard One.  And we have about six hundred teachers who are at the preschool level but only a very small percentage, maybe like ten percent or less are trained. On Friday we released the results to the general managers about their teachers who have been awarded a special permit.  So the teachers themselves have not received their results but we are working on that and it should be released by the end of this month or latest the first week in June.  But each teacher will get an individual letter informing them of their status.”