$400,000 granted for teachers training

Twenty secondary school teachers who hold academic degrees (BA, B. Sc) in their specific subject areas began the International Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) on Monday, Feb 2.{{more}}

The training is funded by the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Caribbean Development Bank at a cost of approximately $400,000.

The course is being delivered by the University of Nottingham, UK, during a 12-month period, via mixed mode: face to face, on-line, along with supervised classroom practice.

It is essentially their teacher training and it aims to improve practice by building new ideas and strategies which are tested out in the teachers’ own classrooms. More specifically, the programme aims to improve teaching by:

• Helping the teachers understand our education system from an international perspective.

• Inviting the teachers to consider the implications in their own settings of international school improvement theories and practices.

• Enabling the teachers to become conversant with the basic assumptions, concepts, and principles of a range of learning theories and to evaluate their usefulness in specific educational situations.

•  Promoting a deeper understanding of a range of teaching strategies .

•  Developing expertise in practitioner research.

•  Making appropriate use of professional and research literature.

The teachers spent this entire week in the first of several face to face sessions at the Red Cross Headquarters, Kingstown, from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm.

At a brief opening ceremony, participants heard from Deputy Chief Education Officer, Luis deShong, Project Manger Joseph Greene, and also officials from the University of Nottingham.