Erdiston Teachers’ Training College (ETTC) has started to put programmes in place to better equip educators for the education transformation process.
Minister of Education Kay McConney made this disclosure on Sunday during a church service to mark the college’s 75th anniversary at the St Michael Cathedral in St Michael’s Row, The City.
During her remarks, McConney said these programmes would not only help teachers implement the reform but address the current issues students were facing in the education system.
“With the Ministry of Education’s support, we now eagerly anticipate the suite of continuous professional development courses that Erdiston will be developing and will implement to support the education transformation agenda,” McConney said.
“Indeed, they have started and we expect that that platform of support for teachers, for educators [and] for school leaders, is just not about training them and stopping, but training them and continuously providing opportunities for them to develop their skill and their competencies so that they may continue to evolve not just as teachers but fundamentally as facilitators of learning in a changing world.
“I know that the college’s principals and others have been intimately involved in the process of building out this professional development platform. Certainly, since July [they have been] working with a special committee that includes representatives from the teachers’ unions, principals’ unions and other stakeholders in education. Armed with data on student performance from the recently concluded diagnostic tests done by the Ministry of Education for secondary school students in the second, third and fourth forms, we believe that the college will be well positioned to address the challenges that we face in teaching and education in general,” she said.
McConney added that the college was innovatively broadening its prospects by collaborating with regional and international esteemed tertiary institutions, which will expand its reach and enhance its capacity to deliver cutting edge programmes.
She said an educator’s hub was established to offer teachers high quality professional development courses and gain certification from prestigious institutions such as Stanford University and Yale University in the United States.
McConne also said that, three weeks ago, the Prime Minister had started discussions with the management of Columbia University to see what partnerships could be forged.
The college, she said, had also rolled out a new course in restorative practices, which aims to create an alternative framework for preventing and addressing community conflicts.
Principal of the ETTC Dr Colin Cumberbatch.
Principal of the ETTC Dr Colin Cumberbatch said staff are excited about the role they would play in transforming the education system.
“At Erdiston Teachers’ Training College we are feeling the excitement and both bracing and preparing ourselves for the major role we are expected to play in this transformation. To this end, the college will shortly be rolling out a new strategic plan, which will speak to our plans for the future as we move ahead,” he said.
Cumberbatch added that the school was also trying to organise training sessions for tutors through self-paced workshops and seminars to allow teachers to access professional development activities at a time more suited to them. He said this would require additional specialised staff.
The principal, in a request to the ministry, asked for the ability to implement day release programmes, courses and workshops, noting that the college was vastly underutilised during the day.
He said this arrangement would also ease pressure on educators and allow the college to meet its mandate of implementing structured targeted developmental opportunities for them.
During the sermon, Reverend Dr Jeffrey Gibson said the education system had an important balance to maintain in society — teaching children to be literate and about moral values.
“For education to be truly liberating it must be a combination of literacy and moral values,” he said, adding that moral education did not only have to be on the premises of religion.
He said having a skill set was not only important but the character of the individual.
Gibson said teaching students about right and wrong, the importance of being honest, compassionate, considerate, having self-respect and tolerance, would help to create a more cohesive society and could lead to a reduction in anti-social behaviour, violence, disrespect towards others and bullying.
(SZB)
