CETT Recognizes St. Lucian Teachers
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Contact: Julita Peter
Wednesday, March 12, 2008 – Teachers and principals of the seven affiliate primary schools of the Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT), and the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College (SALCC) Cluster, have received commendation for their work in the teaching service. The participants were awarded at the first locally held CETT awards on Saturday March 8th 2008. Chief Education Officer Agusta Ifill, who addressed the awardees, said St. Lucian teachers are continuing to give of their best.
“The first meeting that I attended was somewhere around 2005/2006. Professor Miller and the team were giving the report of the CETT results, and I felt good to be the Chief Education of St. Lucia. They were presenting the report of all the clusters that had done exceedingly well and it was St. Lucia, St. Lucia. St. Lucia was way above all the other clusters,” said Mrs. Ifill.
The inability of students to read is a concern not only for education officials in St. Lucia but the entire region. CETT is one of many programs designed to bring students to the desired levels of competence in reading and writing. Reading Specialist in the Ministry of Education in St. Lucia Celeste Burton said as a result of the program, principals and teachers have witnessed the transformation of individual students.
“We want to say that we understand, appreciate and applaud your extremely hard work”, she added. “Much was invested in this project; money, time and much more, and today we can safely boast without hesitation or question that it has paid off significant dividends for our students, teachers, principals, schools and extended school community.”
CETT was introduced to St. Lucia as a pilot project in 2003 with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The program sought to address the teaching of reading, with the aim of getting 100% from students in grades 1, 2 and 3 in reading at or above their level.
Dr. Henry Hinds of the OECS Education Reform Unit (OERU), who was the guest speaker at the CETT awards ceremony, interpreted the celebration as consisting of two major acknowledgements: The central role of literacy in the development of the foundation of knowledge in society, and recognition of the developmental process of teachers' knowledge.
“I do not know what the problem is now, but wherever you go you still hear children cannot read,” he said.
Dr. Hinds encouraged teachers to apply ready-made reading material to their respective context. The child's first language, he said, is his or her native language.
“We have to be conscious that a child is not just coming to school in, as we say in education, tabula rasa—a blank slate. He or she is coming with a culture, and if you do not respect that; you will be wasting some time,” Dr. Hinds added.
The Guyana-born educator also acknowledged Saint Lucia as a leading Caribbean country in the production of reading texts. |
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