MoE Official Says Teachers’ Accreditation Requirement is Not New

There is a shortage of primary and secondary school teachers in some districts ahead of the new school year. In some cases, schools have placed advertisements for vacancies they hope can be filled soon after classes resume on Monday. Teachers have resigned for several reasons, including better paying jobs, teaching opportunities closer to home.  In one instance, the Belize National Teachers’ Union blamed the ministry for not having sufficient staff on hand to process the volumes of certificate for teachers who have completed the requisite number of hours of training. News Five has reached out to the Ministry of Education for a response to the problem. Today, Chief Executive Officer, Dian Maheia explained that the requirement for teachers to complete a hundred and twenty hours of continuous professional development over the course of five years, to renew their license, is one that has been in place for several years. What’s new is the fact that it is being enforced.

 

Dian Maheia, Chief Exec. Officer, Min. of Education

“Teachers who receive their licenses in 2019 are now having to renew. It’s five years later, so we, by our accounts estimate that there’s some twenty-three hundred teachers. It’s in that range – I’m sorry – I don’t have the exact number, but it’s a number in that range. About twenty-three hundred teachers across the country who will have their licenses expiring August 31, 2024, what we’ve seen from our work is that we have about twenty-one hundred of those teachers who have completed the requirements, and their licenses have been renewed and processed. It’s like eighty-eighty percent of them. There’s another group.  That’s about nine percent, I think it’s something like two hundred or so or a little bit less. Those are in process still. They’re either being reviewed still or the teachers are completing the hundred and twenty-hour assignment. For whatever reason, those are in process from the numbers that we have the indication that we have. There’s only about three percent of teachers who have not submitted applications for their license renewal. At this time, we’ve been working in collaboration with the BNTU. They’ve been very consistent in updating their surveys and sending to us at the ministry the lists of teachers who have questions, concerns. Regarding the reports that they’ve gotten from the TLI or not gotten from the TLI so that with the list of names that we get from the BNTU, our respective units are doing the reviews and the checks so that we make sure that if there’s if there’s something that we’re missing but the union is getting feedback from that particular teacher that we’re trying to respond to ensure that we’re, responding to the needs.  I think it’s like between 80 to 90 percent of the workshop offerings that are being given right now and the ministry’s offerings are free teachers do have options to do CPDs from other providers and some of those other providers do charge when, when we started the T.L.I as a platform to offer CPD. Three years ago, the very act of starting the T.L.I really review revolutionized how professional development was being offered for the first time. Teachers didn’t have to travel. They didn’t have to, you know, physically leave where they were. To go to sit in classrooms in other places for eight hours a day for five hours a week, only two weeks of the year. So teachers have had opportunities over the past few years to engage in different kinds of courses, and at different times of the year. And in general, what we’ve seen in feedback from the majority of teachers is that they have made use of the varied forms and the times in which they were able to access those CPDs.”