Many private school teachers have been seeking employment in the government-run schools because they have more scope to teach and are better paid, according to Minister of Education Priya Manickchand.
“You know what’s a good measure when private school teachers are asking us in large numbers to come into the public sector,” she said. The Minister said government was paying teachers higher than privately-owned schools. “The salary is better, the benefits are better but also the opportunity to be all you can be and actually exercise your and your skill and change lives,” she added.
She also told attendees at the launch of four teacher education programmes—Health and Family Life Education, Literacy Education, Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and General Teacher Education—at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) that public servants also want to enter the teaching profession. “We are also seeing a new phenomenon where people want to leave public service jobs, regular public service jobs, and come and teach and those are the stories that tell us we’re doing well,” she said.
In terms of improvements over the past five years, she said full-time trainee teachers were being paid a full salary of more than GY$100,000; the number of teachers has increased from just under 10,000 to 14,000, and more persons from the hinterland schools were being trained by CPCE. The Education Minister remarked that most schools on the coastland were overstaffed.
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