7 News Belize

Teacher’s License Talk
posted (February 5, 2020)
Last night, we showed you the breakthrough that the Ministry of Education made with leadership of the Belize National Teachers Union. After a marathon 5-hour meeting, it appears that the Ministry has convinced the teachers that there will be no need for countrywide industrial action.

As we told you, the Ministry was contemplating making changes to the education rules which the teachers were not comfortable with. After they decided that their concerns weren't being adequately addressed, there was a call to escalate against the Government. But, before any plan was set in motion, the Minister of Education called a meeting with the leadership of the union to discuss possible compromises. We told you about several of those compromises last night, there is one more of importance that affects to the licenses for teachers.

According to the Minister, teachers have a required amount of hours they must demonstrate that they've engaged in continuous professional development. That's the principle where the teachers are engaging in capacity building to improve their abilities, and knowledge of the profession to become better educators.

According to the Minister, some deadlines have been extended, and he explained why:

Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"We had major discussions about the CPD's and how they are offered, who is the offer them, the kind of quality of CPD's that are offered, what happens if a teacher doesn't reach the mark. Those are the kinds of discussions. They were very heated discussions, but we were able to, at the end of the day, reach some compromise."

"From the last meeting that we had on December 9th, we had said that we will extend the waiver to include teachers whose 5-year licenses expire in 2020, this year. So, we extended from 2019 to 2020. So, everybody whose license would come to an end this year. For their renewal, they would not require the 120 CPD's necessarily. And what we agreed to just now was that we would look at things differently for the various different levels of schools. So, our final agreement was that for primary school, where they agreed that it is much easier to access the CPD's, that we would lower the requirement for 2021. So, in 2021, a teacher who's license would come to expiration, will only require a hundred hours of CPD, in order for that license to be renewed. The teacher would have to demonstrate a hundred hours completed, and that the early childhood/pre-school and secondary level, that we would have another year's waiver. So, in 2021, in addition to 2020, and 2019, which are now already ongoing, there would be a waiver. So, if your license comes to an end this year, 2020, or next year, 2021, and you're at the pre-primary or secondary level, then you will not be required to meet the requirement of 120 CPD's in order for you to renew your license. But, in the following year of 2022, the requirement will be 100 credit hours or CPD hours, and in the following year of 2023, then we would resume the 120 CPD hours."

"We accepted the complaint that things are not set up in a planned and organized manner that these CPD's can be met in order to fill the requirement. And so, we have agreed that we will set up a task force that will work diligently over the next 3 months to ensure that we have offerings of these CPD's, and that all stakeholders will participate."

The Union's leadership has gone back to the general membership to consult with them on the proposed changes coming out of yesterday's meeting.

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