So as you heard, the Ministry of Education has its work cut out for it, with the consistently poor results of the PSE each year. But just how seriously is the Ministry taking this matter? Well according to CEO David Leacock, they are serious enough to begin axing teachers who are doing the educational system an injustice by not taking advantage of the training initiatives lead by the Ministry. He explained how they are trying to enhance the academic performance of primary school students.
David Leacock, CEO, Ministry of Education
"Notably over the past few years we've been pushing for ensuring that all teachers are trained, so we are guarding the entry into the profession by making sure, through the teaching service commission, that schools hire trained teachers. We've been providing more opportunities for teachers to get trained and this year as you all may be aware, there's an effort for those who have not taken the opportunity to get trained there's an ongoing effort to push them towards that. Some of them who are not showing any interest or any effort towards that are sadly going to not be eligible to continue their employment. This is all part of the effort of ensuring that we have good quality trained teachers in our system, all of which should lead to better performance in the system. But it's not enough. At this time we have in the primary school system 129 primary schools who will benefit over the next 4 years on training on the teaching of English, Math, and science. Right now we have 25 schools that have started, this coming year we will add another 50-60 and then another 50-60 the following year, so by the time we're through we'd have covered 129 schools using more active methods to help children learn English, Math and Science."
Today, the Ministry also awarded the top performers in the Belize District. Special award ceremonies will also be held throughout next week for the North, South and West school divisions.
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