This is What Teachers Need to Know During COVD-19 Pandemic

Schools across the country remain closed likely for the rest of the academic year so the Ministry of Education has developed an online programme to keep students at all levels engage in learning. So what about teachers who are working to obtain CPD’s and student-teachers working on obtaining their licenses? The Ministry has designed a temporary procedure that enables teachers to submit applications for licenses online. Deputy Chief Education Officer Doctor Neulin Villanueva explains.

Neulin Villanueva

Dr. Neulin Villanueva, Deputy Chief Education Officer

“In the case of students teachers the external assessment would have normally been done during that period of school closure. However those students would have done the bulk of their work to qualify them from being certified. What the ministry of planning to do is to look at the internal assessment grades because there is the internal assessment and then there is the external assessment. While we might not be able t visit teachers we will be an external assessment based on their portfolio, their lesson plans and unit plans that they’ve developed as part of that internship course. Although at the secondary level most of our teachers would be engage with student learning. At the primary level it is not so much and so what we asked teachers to do is to use this opportunity to gain continuing professional development hours. As you know our teachers with full licenses are required to do a hundred and twenty hours of CPD with a five year period and so this is an opportunity to focus on that.  I am very excited to share that the Ministry actually has development a number of CPD course, online CPD courses. There are two courses right now that we are advertising there is one called thriving in uncertain times. It says “Making your wellbeing a priority” and what that wil cover is several area of wellness: mental, emotional, physical and financial. The two courses that I mentioned are available for teachers at all level. We have a list on pre approved CPD course on the website as well. Because of the regulations it does not allow a teacher to be teaching within our system without a valid teaching license.  That’s one of the essential services that the ministry has to keep going. What we have asked teachers to do is to complete the application form which can be found on our website and that application form can then be downloaded and sent along the appropriate documents to the email address of the District Education Manager.”