An education initiative announced by United States President, George W Bush at the April 2001 Summit of the Americas, in which teachers in the Caribbean would be trained in new teaching methods through an Excellence programme, has been getting positive reviews by participating countries.

The programme, Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (C-CETT), to which Bush committed US$20 million, assists schools in identifying factors that may prevent students from mastering reading and helps in designing interventions to help overcome challenges they might be facing in learning to read.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sponsors the programme, which was launched in 2003 and has brought best practices in reading education to over half a million students in grades one to three in communities in Jamaica, Guyana, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Belize.

Under the initiative, Central and South American countries are also benefiting, with Honduras and Peru being hosts for the respective regions.

The programme, managed by the University of the West Indies (UWI) and based in Jamaica, also works with teacher training institutions to produce teachers who are better skilled and motivated and who will promote reading in the classroom.

Among the positive results in Jamaica, grade three students at the Salt Marsh Primary School in Trelawny, have recorded significant improvements in their reading skills over the past year. Eighty percent of these students scored above Jamaica’s mastery level in reading skills, compared to 56 per cent the previous year.

Salt Marsh is one of 68 schools across the Caribbean from which over 400 teachers have been drawn to participate in C-CETT.

At an awards dinner at the Sunset Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios Tuesday night, thirty of these teachers and five principals were honoured, based on their performance.

At the ceremony, teachers of the year for grades one, two and three were chosen.

Teachers from Jamaica captured the awards for grade one – Kaye Salmon of Catherine Hall Primary in Montego Bay, whose grade one class scored an astounding 90 per cent average in 2005, the highest recorded in the entire Caribbean; and for grade two – Michelle Traille of Clan Carthy Primary.

Zenith Edwards of St Lucia won the award for grade three.

In addition to the prizes they received at the ceremony, all three teachers will receive an all-expense paid trip to the International Reading Association Conference in Toronto, Canada in May 2007.

United States Ambassador Brenda LaGrange Johnson – herself a former teacher – who spoke at the ceremony, said through C-CETT, top teachers and principals are excelling in improving the reading skills of their students.

The programme, she said, began as part of President Bush’s vision that “no child shall be left behind.”

“Despite other pressing concerns, education remains a priority for President Bush’s administration,” Johnson said. “Necessary resources were allocated to ensure that students in the Caribbean and Latin America would stand a better chance of learning to read, thus opening the window to the world of learning,” she added.

According to Johnson, C-CETT’s true value is in the number of students who are better readers and who perform better on regional standardized tests.

“C-CETT is designed to strengthen the skills of those working directly with students and continues to develop a cadre of teachers who demonstrate best practices in literacy. Their skills are proven in the quality of their instructions and by the improved reading achievement of their students,” she said.

Chief education officer at the Ministry of Education, Adelle Brown, hailed the success of the programme and said the ability to read and write well is key to learning. The teachers involved in C-CETT are critical to the process, Brown said.

According to Brown “the Caribbean Single Market and Economy will not be the political base we want it to be if we are still dogged with low literacy rates.”

President-elect of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), Hopeton Henry, commended the programme and encouraged the implementers.

“The JTA and the Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT) look forward to when there will be a greater replication of this project,” Henry said.

The programme has attracted sponsorship from Scholastic, the largest publisher and distributor of children’s books in the United States, which is providing 50,000 books, valued at $750,000 for Caribbean students. Other sponsor include Air Jamaica, Alcoa Foundation, Illuminat, Pearson Publications and Book Merchants, whose managing director Sharon Neita was present to hand over her company’s prize.