“The Government and people of Guyana are grateful for your presence here, particularly in the midst of reviewing and repositioning our Education Sector Development Strategy Plan. We wholeheartedly welcome partners whose programmes fit into our priorities on education service delivery, and we believe that our teachers are our frontline, our vanguard, in the effort of sector improvement. Any qualified and credible help that we can facilitate for them, we will.”
Such was the missive of Hon. Nicolette Henry at the opening of the Limited Resources Teachers Training programme, LRTT on Monday at the School of the nations. The team is conducting four days of interactive sessions to enable teachers to create learning, engaging environments to promote learning at the School of the Nations.
Some one hundred and fifteen (115) teachers have registered to benefit from schools across Guyana with larger participation from Georgetown. This workshop follows on the heel of a programme conducted in Berbice where about thirty (30) participants benefited from the similar training. The workshop that commenced on Tuesday, August 1 targets all levels of teachers and is being conducted by twenty-two (22) teachers from the United Kingdom and the United States of America (USA).
British High Commissioner Gregory Quinn in his remarks at the opening of the sessions quoted Winston Church Hill and referenced the idea that there are those who are always ready to learn but are not sure that they are always ready to be thought.
He commended the LRTT team efforts as they press towards attaining the millennium goals of universal primary education by the prescribed time frame.
Mr. Quinn in his missive likened the sessions to that of the everyday ritual of planting the seed and watering it to realise its full potential much like that of what should give in the teaching and learning process.
“Teaching is certainly not about the money but you have something more than that to earn since you have the ability to shape minds… Be patient teach those (Students) to dream and be optimistic, teach them to be independent and resourceful. Give it all you can and you will not regret the end results,” Commissioner Quinn advised.
He also advised participants to realise that the conference is a true reflection of unity and cultural diversity.
Hon. Nicolette Henry while thanking Dr. Brian O’Toole, Director of School of the Nations for affording her the privilege of address those gathered welcomed the special guests from the United States, to Guyana, wished them an enjoyable stay and a successful workshop with their Guyanese counterparts.
Encouraging the participants as well as the instructors to explore and network Minister Henry echoed the sentiments of High Commissioner Quinn noting that “the Limited Resource Teacher Training programme, under which you have all come here to share your expertise, works in direct support of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 4, which speaks to the delivery of Quality Education globally.”
Additionally, it was noted too that The specific target, C aims to “By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing states.
Since Independence, Guyana has always seen the critical value of two things such as “The need for expanding access to quality education, and the role of our international partners in assisting to fill the gaps in expanding that access. This is why we’ve over the years welcomed the interventions provided by initiatives like Project Trust, and World Teach, and the United States Peace Corps, with a new batch of volunteers under the latter programme were recently sworn in and deployed to communities around the country,” Minister henry noted.
The programme/ course target’s difference was among the noted points for Minister Henry “– LRTT focuses on using trained teachers to enhance the capacity of our untrained teachers, supplementing the tremendous work we have been doing with admittedly limited resources both at the Cyril Potter College of Education, and at the University of Guyana.”
Minister Henry recognizing the role played by School of the Nations in bringing the LRTT initiative to Guyana noted that “it is no doubt with great foresight on your part that you named your school, in expectation of the current push towards global involvement in sustainable education under Goal 4.”
Also noted by the Minister was that the invaluable work that the entity and its founders have played in uplifting the standard of education in Guyana over the past two decades.
However, these came amidst the reality of government’s position of what might be the occasional disagreement on some policy measures, in spite of which Minister Henry posited continues to see the School of the Nations as a critical partner in education and human resource development locally.
(Article and Photo from The Ministry of Education)