JIS: Countries in the region are being urged to adopt a licensing system for teachers as a means of branding education and making educators globally competitive.
Making the call, Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, Robert Miller, said as is the case with several other professions, teachers need to have a body to recertify them, and that with such as system, meaningful benefits will come.
In Jamaica, the new Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill is seeking to recognise, regulate and promote the teaching profession and maintain professional standards for educators.
“Whether it be four or five years, there must be some basic criteria that govern the profession. This will allow teachers to be on the cutting edge in the field, and allow them to be more marketable locally and internationally,” Mr. Miller said.
The Senior Advisor was delivering the 2016 John Cumberbatch Memorial Lecture in Barbados, recently, which was organised by that country’s Union of Teachers.
Mr. Miller in his wide-ranging address, urged the region to address the issue of funding for education, stressing that in the delivery of quality education, preparing students for the global community must be a priority.
“We must boost innovation throughout our external examinations. It must be noted that education must be the vehicle out of poverty; we must strive to harness our human resources to get them competent and job-ready, to satisfy the demand of globalisation,” he said.
Regional educators, Mr. Miller said, must be mentors of youth, so that there can be more creators of wealth and young people seeing themselves as employers, rather than employees.
The issue of inadequate parenting must also be tackled, according to the Senior Advisor.
CAPTION: Senior Advisor in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, Robert Miller.