Half of Belize's teachers are not properly trained. That is according to Education Minister Francis Fonseca who said the dismal performance of standard six students on the PSE was in part caused by a lack of qualified teachers. Of course what the Minister failed to mention is part of the reason that there are fewer qualified teachers in the classroom, could be because there what was a dedicated Teacher's Training College has been annexed into the more costly Univeristy of Belize.
Those issues are coming into focus this week as UB is hosting the third triennial regional conference of the Joint Board of Teacher Education. The conference is focusing on tertiary level education but the Joint Board's Chairman Joan Tucker and UB's Dean of Education and Arts Vilma Joseph say good teaching can't start at junior college.
Joan Tucker, Joint Board's Chairman
"The theme of our conference is the teachers learning in the 21st century and we have chosen that theme because we realize that education is a very dynamic thing. Presently there a number of changes, there are a number of needs, there are regional needs, there are needs from the global environment. We cannot think of teacher education as being once and for all. There is a necessity for continuing education for the teacher to be learning, to be dealing with changes in technology, to dealing with changes in knowledge, and to be constantly learning in order to survive in the dynamic environment that our learners of today need."
Dr. Vilma Joseph, UN Dean of Education and Arts
"Teachers need training. Without training they will not be able to do what we expect them to do. Therefore not having training impacts negatively on the teachers and the children that they will cheap and also the country. 50% of the teachers aren't trained. The think is that training is something that one has to pay for. Therefore some of these teachers might not be able to access funds to attend school. At one point we used to have a system where teachers got scholarships and they would go into the institution and they got their salaries and so on but more and more it has become very costly so they no longer have this kind of access.
We will leave from here as teachers, educators. We will be taking with us some of the innovations coming from different parts of the Caribbean. I think this conference is a very important conference for us because with the coming of the CSME we have to look at standards and even before now standards are things that are very important for us to maintain. Therefore coming together like this is something good for, not only Belize, but for the other Caribbean islands."
The triennial conference concludes tomorrow.
