A LICENCE TO TEACH

The proposal by the Ministry of Education for the issuing of teaching licences, renewable every five years, and the accompanying stipulation that teachers would be required during the five-year period of their licences to undergo retooling and retraining exercises will result in a constant upgrading of teachers in their efficiency. The mandatory upgrading should be a requirement for all professionals in Trinidad and Tobago, whether lawyers, doctors, nurses or dentists among others, and not simply members of the teaching profession. The mechanics, of course, will have to be worked out.

Nothing stands still in teaching or for that matter in any profession, and yesterday’s hailed methods and standards of teaching are today’s history. Unless the teacher updates himself, then the children and the society lose because the teacher is unequipped to deal with rapidly changing methods, and today’s as well as ultimately tomorrow’s approach, as effectively as he would have when he graduated. He has literally tied his hands behind his back to use a cliche, and the children and the community suffer. In addition, the teacher has to understand that, in the same way he insists to his charges that there are different rungs of the ladder of education, and that children in Standard Five cannot hope to get by in secondary school merely with what they are learning in the class today. in turn, he cannot get by with what he learned 15 to 20 years earlier at university or teachers’ training college.

Canada, for example, has long since introduced the system of licences for teachers and there is the insistence by officialdom that teachers have to continuously upgrade their skills. Information moves quickly and teachers are required to keep up. In turn, every two years or so a principal will go through a teacher’s books and records thoroughly. Additionally, while no mention has been made of a teaching licence fee for Trinidad and Tobago teachers, in Canada a teaching licence costs Can$150 annually. A teacher who insists on standing still, educationally, simply cannot function as effectively as the teacher who continuously upgrades himself. But the teaching licence thrust however laudable, must be marketed to the teachers both by the Ministry of Education and the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association and other representative bodies.

Already, the new TTUTA President, Clyde Permell, has spoken in terms of persons who have gained university degrees being required to receive special teacher training and relevant qualifications. Nonetheless, there has to be an input by TTUTA and not merely agreement on the principle of teaching licences. The Ministry of Education, as crucial as the teaching licence is to the development of Trinidad and Tobago, should appreciate that its proposal has to be properly marketed or there may be an uncomfortable initial degree of teacher resistance. The idea needs to be put across to the teachers almost in much the same way that curriculum change should be marketed. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education’s proposal will better position the bulk of the nation’s teachers to provide qualitative inputs into curriculum development and teaching methods.

Minister of Education, Senator Hazel Manning, has stated, in announcing the proposal to introduce renewable teaching licences, that it formed part of the Ministry’s initiative to reform and modernise the teaching service. “We are looking at the development of professional teachers and are actively encouraging them to become involved in the reform process,” she added. Meanwhile, it is something that should not be applicable only to teachers at primary and secondary schools, but the idea should be extended to include pre-schools or early childhood education centres as well, once the Ministry is in a position to insist on certain qualifications for teachers at these schools. It will need some adjusting by teachers to the idea of renewable teaching licences, but its acceptance and implementation are factors needed to be in place by Trinidad and Tobago if it is serious about beginning to equip its young people for the crucial challenges being posed by globalisation.