There are 4,466 teachers in Belize, 2664 of them at the primary level and only 52 percent of them are formally trained. Well now there's a Board of Teacher Education to come up with ways to train more teachers. It's a fifteen member group and as they were commissioned today, Minister of Education Francis Fonseca highlighted the importance of having fully trained teachers in the school system.
Hon. Francis Fonseca,
"I consider teacher education and training to be the most important factor in approving the quality of education in Belize. This is not to say all trained teachers are good teachers and all untrained teachers are bad teachers. We know from our own experiences here in Belize that that is simply not the case. But what is clear is that the better educated, better equipped, better prepared a teacher is, the greater the likelihood that he or she will deliver a higher quality of education to their students. If we are serious about quality education therefore, we must have as our objective, we must have as our objective, an education system fully staffed by trained teachers."
The Belize Board of Teacher Education will look at entry qualification of teacher trainees, supervision of institutions training teachers and setting of standards and requirements for certifying teachers.
