Student teachers struggle at C-minus grade
Published:Sunday | August 28, 2011 | 12:00 AM
... Low academic competence worries educators
Erica Virtue, Senior Gleaner Writer
STUDENT TEACHERS who are barely attaining competence at teacher training institutions across the island are causing serious concerns among stakeholders in the education system.
There are also fears that many are struggling to attain C- or 45 per cent passes, and are also struggling in the classrooms.
Some students were barely passing the modules while at training colleges, and the weaknesses were being transported to the classroom, Elaine Foster-Allen, immediate past chief inspector of the National School Inspectorate, told a Gleaner Editors' Forum.
"Within the programme you might have courses that you may not have done as well as you could have done and so you get a C- and that indicates that there are some weaknesses, she said, explaining that some colleges have been working hard to remedy the serious problem.
"We have been requesting, and in fact the colleges have been working for about five years now to ensure that the students who come to us must have five Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) or General Certificate in Education (GCE). And all students who are specialising in a secondary subject, must have a Grade One or a Grade Two in their area of specialisation.
"When a teacher has done three years of preparation, the teacher is still a novice. It takes years of preparation to develop your artistry and your expertise in teaching. We may not have been as strategic as we ought to have been. When our novices leave the teacher training institutions, they must have the targeted support that they need," Foster-Allen suggested.
Her position is supported by Basil Tabannor, immediate past president of the Jamaica Independent Schools' Association.
"Teacher quality matters," he said.
"In fact, it is the most important factor influencing student achievement. Jamaica needs a wide range of empirical studies that will examine the impact of teacher characteristics and teacher effectiveness, in order to draw conclusions about the extent to which these characteristics are linked with teacher performance," Tabannor suggested in opening comments at the forum.
Consistent training programmes
For Foster-Allen, early identification of the weaknesses will assist the colleges to take corrective action.
"Under a new system we have just started - and we are sharing this across the colleges - is that you have key points in any semester when you look at, say, week five, is the student doing well? Week 10, what are the interventions we need to have? Week 10, week 15, what are the other interventions? So I think we have been a little tardy, and we have not taken as much responsibility as we should have done in ensuring that we have a system that is continuous," she explained.
According to her, things are often said about the quality of our teachers without understanding what some of the issues are, and what is being done to address them.
Dr Tamika Benjamin, Mico University College lecturer and chief external examiner for mathematics for the Joint Board of Teacher Education, said it was important that teachers were sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject area of his or her competence, so that effective teaching and learning can take place.
She said there should be consistency in the training programmes for continuous training to allow teachers to grow.