Education Minister Peter St Jean says no practitioner will be unduly disadvantaged as government seeks to implement Universal Early Childhood Education (UECE) in Dominica.
The minister told a plenary discussion on UECC on Tuesday that while there will be structural changes, teachers who do not meet the criteria will be trained.
“People are of the view that government is going to get rid of teachers who had been there for 30 years. We will not fire anybody but what we would seek to do is provide the necessary training and upgrading,” he said.
St Jean said government will make it mandatory that these teachers undergo the necessary training, “failing which they will have to move on”.
He said some of the existing facilities for early childhood education are unacceptable, and that in some of those areas, the students are being transported to other schools.
The education act makes provisions for these facilities to be integrated into the primary schools.
this is going to create more problems than solutions. why don’t these policy makers ever liaise and consult with the people they impose their policies on???
rather than innovate and create something of our own we just love to push square pegs in round holes….
no facilities have been built, no talk of classification exercises, jus do this and do that….. nonsense…
I can see this is going to turn out just like this universal secondary education thing….weh boy…lord give our policy makers vision..
Sorry Mr.St Jean but those teachers need to be better paid,you all need to carry out a regional assessment of teachers salaries so that the next time around when comes to salary negotiation you all will not be sending out the kind of message that you all did the last time(we don’t really care)
As you may have observe Mr.St Jean they are are the builder of the future,they are mothers,fathers,big brothers and big sisters,
those teachers adopt children as their own,feeding them when they didn’t have breakfast or are very hungry at break time on the same meager salary
As you may already know social security gone up the cost of living also gone up, there is no price control on this island
Sorry the only things that i am hearing from you politician is BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA
Why mister always looking like he ready to jump on somebody nuh?
I take the point of “Pre School Teacher” but the focus has to be on quality and we do not have the structure to monitor, supervise and enable the pre school in Dominica. This intiatitive is a just a coinvenient political one simply because their is a rush to have it done by September 2012. Anyone you really talk to in ECD business and even at primary school will tell you that the Govt. minister is mad to make that rush pronouncement, therfore it is not an initiative, it is a pronouncement as this intitaive has been spoken off for years now. Teachers need to be brought to that level of undersanding the psychology and concept and context of ECD, it is also a parent thing and just telling me and the public that you placng pre school in primary school where possible is just a physical move not a strategic move and a disaster waiting to happen just as Universal secondary education has been undermined, undersupervised,poor management with so csalled qualified teachers as princpals who cannot make the connection in holistic teaching practices as against just chalk and talk in a clasroom.. The system is a mess just look at the poor performance, the delinquency, the drop out, the poor standards, the cries of tecahers for resources and of poor managenent vs crisis management, the violence in schools. These people are not ready and it is always this fanfare to talk about launching programmes with no qualified preparation and substance. I am in there within the MOE and these people are running about like chickens with no head and just obeying the minister because “he say so” and they know that his thing cannot be done by September 2012 but as professionals they know better. You see UNICEF and OECS are at the government to meet deadlines so they are rushing his thing as an urgency matter and not realy because they want to do it. So it is not a Dominican thing. They are like formi fous in there within the Ministry for Edication…..rush….rush rush and then disaster. There is a big disconect between the inept and uninformed politician and the professionals.
Placing ECD within the primary school is not easy and we are not even prepared to accept this notion, let alone to sell it and parents will believe that once their children go in there it is free, as parents they forfeit of their parental obligation and ECD is more about the home and parenting and commnuity and not just placed in a primary school…This needs sound policy thinnking,advice and prepartion. There are countries out there now promoting Universal ECD and their target date to introduce is by 2015 and the approach is startegic not rushed. We like too much bling bing flashlight rush policy suff.
you hit the nail on the head.
YES you said it right!
The business of anybody opening pre-schools and daycares is just ridiculous. When I see the locations of some daycares it is just an accident waiting to happen. Early Childhood Education is not just from Pre-school it starts at the daycare and mostly if not all our daycares house staff that is just not qualified and this is very dangerous. The Government should look into the daycares. This is unacceptable.
Possitive move Mr St Jean..
Most of the schools are empty.The minister should put these schools in the primary schools with empty classrooms.They do not have to build new facilities. Early childhood education would help those little kiddos. Those teachers really need to be trained.I am not saying that they dont do a good job but being trained would make it much better.
Thi is a very good initiative by the government but our big question is with the universal Early Chidhood Education there is going to be much more children in the preschools even those that are not able to pay and we already have lots of them that are not paying some of us have to pay rent and this for sure will call for more teachers so with what are we going to pay the teacher? And who is going to pay us for those children who can’t afford to pay? Some of our prschool teachers a well trained even better than those in the primary school , some have gone to secondary,college, university and lots of training while some just sit around not doing anything. Also, some who have been in earlychildhood over 30 years even went as far as wirting cxc .GONE A THE DAYS WHEN POPLE LOOK DOWN ON PRESCHOOL TEACHERS we have what it takes to be a teacher so people stop thinking we are a group of people who don’t know our job . why don’t the government pay the preshool teachers who a trained so this could encourage the others to upgrade themslves. I saw a lady who is a preshol teacher that was 60 years sitting in a college class while younger ones sat back doing all the wrong things in their school .
At last. Someone is thinking in the terms of my training/ education field. Although it is never too late to begin the integration of Early Childhood Education into our school system, it seems that Dominica is way behind in such a discipline. As we all know, it is never too early to impart knowledge. What matters though, is the manner and the content which will be displayed. Children’s mind is like cement. Remember any impression last forever. Therefore, integrate such learning with persons who are well educated in this field, or the resuls may be devastating. Keep that trend of thought flowing. Very very relevant at this time. Great idea.
Universal Early Childhood Development..??????????
Does the Minister know what he talking about and by September….Please!!!!!!!! I hope the technoctracts and specialist in there will advised n=best…because I am convinced these specilist ae not the ones caling for it..I would bet my last dollar.
Do uo know what is in involved in that..They stil eh get right Universal Secndary Education, is ECD they after…….look how many children double and and drop out at secondary school by the time reach 2nd form……they do not know how to remedy the situation….
These guys go on TV….say the sky is RED and someone will pop up here on DNO and say Good initiative by the ministry..What is the iniiative?
@Views Expressed perhaps you need to consider getting on board to make it work. Remember Dominica’s development every Dominican’s responsiblity.
Well done minister.
I support this 100%
Good initiative by the Ministry of Education